


you bake my day

by zero_miles



Series: salt squad [1]
Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bakery, Enemies to Lovers, Fluff and Humor, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Misunderstandings, jaemin is genre savvy when it comes to romantic comedies, lots and lots of baked goods, one-sided enemies but still
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-05
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-10-22 12:39:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 35,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17662811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zero_miles/pseuds/zero_miles
Summary: Taeil is the proud co-owner of Crumbles, a bakery that specializes in cookies and cookies only. He didn't know what he was expecting when a mysterious new customer who just so happened to be his exact type had said they'd be seeing a lot more of each other soon, but Taeil definitely knows he wasn't expecting him to become their direct competitor. As in, "right across the street" kind of direct competitor. Yeah.





	1. meet me in the pouring rain

**Author's Note:**

> i'm back with another johnil chaptered fic!! if you saw me mention this on twitter, uh, last night, i described it as "rivals johnil fic".....that isn't entirely accurate. but you'll see what i mean.
> 
> this should be about seven chapters, and this one will most definitely be the shortest of them all :D

It’s raining again.

Taeil sighs as he presses his hand against the front window of his shop. It doesn’t matter that they have the best cookies in the city, an award that Crumbles has won three years in a row and counting. Rain keeps everyone inside, and their display cases reflect it. Only their most devoted customers or those who had large custom orders to pick up have stopped by, but that was before lunch. No one has walked in the door for over an hour now, and Taeil sighs again.

“Stop moping. It’s April. You can’t be shocked that it’s raining in April, Taeil,” Donghyuck says, sounding suspiciously like he’s talking with his mouth full. Taeil knows that if he turned around, he’d find Donghyuck with a hot cocoa cookie in each hand. “Also, since you’re the one getting your fingerprints all over the glass today I refuse to clean the windows when we close up,” Donghyuck continues, his voice less muffled than it had been thirty seconds before.

“I’m pretty sure you being my employee means you have to clean the windows if I tell you to clean the windows,” Taeil says, but it’s without heat. There’s only two things that will get Donghyuck to clean the windows now – either an act of God himself, or Jeno asking him. Unfortunately for Taeil, Jeno has the day off and he doesn’t think God seems very inclined to force Taeil’s most strong-willed employee to clean some smudges off the window.

It’s a good thing that Donghyuck is an excellent baker, or else Taeil would have fired him months ago.

(He wouldn’t have. Yuta wouldn’t have allowed it. But Taeil likes to pretend that he makes all of the decisions around here.)

“Sure it does,” Donghyuck says with a satisfied hum. “But hey, since we don’t have any customers, can I borrow the kitchen for a while? I don’t think we’ll have to make any more cookies today, no offense.”

Taeil turns around – sure enough, the tray of hot cocoa cookies in the display case is noticeably emptier – and raises an eyebrow. “Why?”

“Jeno’s birthday is next week and I want to do a practice run with his cake, so I’ll know what changes I need to make. But if I do I at home, it’ll ruin the surprise,” Donghyuck says, pouting a little. He’s learned that acting cute is a sure fire way for Taeil to let him do whatever he wants, unfortunately, but at least this time the joke’s on him because Taeil wouldn’t refuse a request like that from anyone. Well. From anyone he can trust in his kitchen, anyways.

“Go ahead,” Taeil answers, smiling a little at how Donghyuck’s face lights up and he claps in excitement. There’s a reason why basically everyone likens the kid to the sun, after all, and it’s a sorely needed dose of brightness on an otherwise dreary day.

Donghyuck’s an excellent baker, but he’s also a noisy one. The shop is quiet enough that the echoes of bowls and pans clattering against the counters in the kitchen are loud enough that Taeil can hear them clearly at the front of the store as he wipes down the windows he had smudged earlier just to give himself something to do, but he doesn’t mind. He’s used to it, and besides, if he minded noisy kitchens he never would have opened a bakery. On their busiest baking days, the kitchen is barely controlled chaos, but that barely controlled chaos is what Taeil lives for. Even on the worst days, he couldn’t imagine doing anything else.

A particularly loud crash from the kitchen startles Taeil into dropping the bottle of glass cleaning solution to the ground, and he can only watch helplessly as the impact cracks the seal of the nozzle and the solution spreads into a puddle at his feet. “Son of a bitch,” he curses, nearly inaudible to his own ears over Donghyuck’s panicked shout of “Fuck, sorry Taeil!” from the kitchen.

“Um…is this a bad time?” a new voice says from the vicinity of the doorway. Taeil’s head snaps up, and his breath catches in his throat as he takes in the customer standing in the open doorway. The man is tall. So, so tall. Like, Taeil’s pretty sure he would only reach the man’s shoulders kind of tall. He also has warm, inviting eyes, a plush mouth that seems to be naturally turned up at the corners like a perpetual smile, and dark hair that’s pulled back into a small bun at the top of his head. Needless to say, Taeil is _fucked_.

“Definitely not!” Taeil squeaks out, wincing at how high pitched his voice comes out. “I just need to go grab a mop, but after that I’m all yours.”  The reality of what he had just said doesn’t hit him until he makes it to the kitchen in search of the mop, however, and he stops dead in his tracks at the horror.

“What’s your problem? I said I was sorry,” Donghyuck whines, clearly having been interrupted by Taeil storming into the kitchen.

Taeil closes his eyes. “I just made a fool out of myself in front of a really, really hot guy,” he hisses.

Donghyuck makes a dismissive noise. “You make a fool out of yourself in front of Yuta daily, and he’s like the second hottest person I’ve ever met. You should be used to it by now.”

“Yuta doesn’t count, we’ve been best friends since our freshman year of college,” Taeil reminds him reaching for the mop, “there’s absolutely nothing I could do to embarrass myself in front of him that’s more embarrassing than some of the shit he pulled back then. Nothing.”

“Why do you need the mop?”

“I don’t have time to explain right now, I have cleaning supplies to clean up and a customer to take care of,” he says.

“Fine, but you owe me an explanation after!” Donghyuck shouts after him.

The hot customer is studying the display case with a look of intensity that reminds Taeil of Doyoung when faced with an expense report, so Taeil lets him be in favor of cleaning up the glass cleaner before the puddle can spread even more. For a moment, he’s grateful for the rain keeping their usual flow of customers away; he’d dropped the bottle in a high-traffic area, and on a normal day it might have been tracked all over the shop. Taeil’s no stranger to cleaning up messes, though, so he’s able to make quick work of it. He washes his hands quickly when he brings the mop back into the kitchen, and takes a moment to make sure his apron is straight before returning to the counter.

“Do you see anything you like?” Taeil asks, noticing that the customer is still staring intently into the display case.

The customer looks up at that, and his lips curve into something Taeil would definitely, definitely call _flirty_. “Mmm, I think so,” he says, giving Taeil a blatant once over and Taeil nearly bites his tongue.  “I’m not sure about the cookies, though. What do you recommend?”

 _Be professional!_ the voice in Taeil’s head that sounds like Doyoung screams. “Well, it depends on what you like,” Taeil says. “My employee that’s here with me today really likes the hot cocoa cookies –”

“Is that who I heard shouting from the what I assume is the kitchen area when I walked in?” the customer asks.

Taeil nods, feeling his face heat up for some reason. “Um, yes. Sorry about that. Accidents happen in the kitchen, you know, and he must have thought there weren’t any customers in the store right then since we’ve had a slow day today.”

The customer hums, propping an elbow on the top of the display case. It’s something that Taeil would yell at his employees for doing and politely ask any other customer to please stop, but this customer? He could plaster himself all over the glass display case and Taeil wouldn’t even complain about the effort it would take to clean it tonight. “I noticed that,” he says. “Is this normal for you? I did notice the empty storefront across the street…”

Taeil, without realizing it, falls right into the hot customer’s trap. “Definitely not,” he says firmly. “When it’s pouring outside like it has been all day today it’s slow, but that’s normal for any retail establishment, you know? Like, not even the grocery store would be that busy if you went there right now. Not to mention that we’re in the middle of the normal lull between lunchtime and kids getting out of school. If you came back on a sunny day or a weekend, we’d definitely be a lot busier.”

“Alright,” hot customer says. If he’s surprised about how defensive Taeil got, he doesn’t mention it. “Did you put the old food service place across the street out of business then?”

“No,” Taeil snorts. “They did that themselves. It was an overpriced hipster smoothie shop, which was bad enough, but their drinks were absolutely disgusting. One of my kids nearly threw up after trying one of their daily specials once. It literally smelled like vomit,” he shudders, remembering the day that Jeno – sweet, naïve Jeno – had been suckered into shelling out ten bucks for a smoothie literally half the size of the free water cups Taeil keeps stacked behind the register.

“Oh,” the hot customer says, sounding a little disappointed. “You have kids?”

Taeil’s eyes widen. “Not actual kids!” he says hastily. “Two of my employees are sophomores in college, so I call them my kids, you know? Even though they hate it,” he adds, half expecting Donghyuck to chime in like he normally does when Taeil refers to he and Jeno has his kids. His silence is honestly suspicious, but Taeil hopes that maybe it just means that he put in headphones to listen to music while he bakes or something. (It’s doubtful, but it’s been said that Taeil is an optimist, so whatever.)

The hot customer chuckles at that. “Ah, those kinds of kids,” he says warmly, all traces of disappointment gone from his voice. “I’m familiar with that, then. I’ve got a couple of those myself who might kill me if they find out I stopped in here today without bringing them some cookies too,” he says, his gaze dropping back down to the display case.

“That would be a tragedy,” Taeil says before he can stop himself.

“I agree,” the hot customer says. “Alright, so you told me what your employee’s favorite cookie is. But what about yours?”

That’s a question that’s always felt like making Taeil pick between his favorite kids, but for hot customer? He’ll do his best to answer. “Mine? Of what we have in the display case today, either the brown butter toffee chocolate chip cookies or the red velvet cookies,” he decides on. “The Nutella varieties are super popular with our customers as well.”

“How many Nutella varieties do you have?” the customer asks curiously.

“More than one bakery should ever have,” Taeil answers, thinking of how Jungwoo’s mission in life seems to be to discover just how many cookie recipes he can “improve” by adding Nutella to the mix. Granted, he’s usually right, but still.

The customer hums contemplatively. “Alright. How about I take half a dozen of the red velvet cookies and half a dozen of those toffee things you mentioned?”

“Of course,” Taeil answers automatically. After four and a half years of owning a cookie shop, boxing up cookies by the dozen comes second nature to him by this point and so he makes quick work of it. He even slips in two of the cream cheese sugar cookies with a Nutella glaze into the box with a wink up at the customer, whose almost bashful smile in return makes Taeil’s heart sing.

“Thank you so much,” the customer says, once Taeil’s cashed him out and slid the ribbon-wrapped box of cookies across the counter. “I’ll definitely be seeing more of you around,” he adds with a nod, almost as if he just came to some important conclusion on the spot.

“Looking forward to it,” Taeil says, complete with a dorky wave he knows Yuta would never let him hear the end of had he seen it. Yuta’s off today, though, which means he’ll never know.

Donghyuck clears his throat from behind Taeil literally the second the customer closes the door behind himself.

“What?” Taeil asks, watching as the customer struggles to open his umbrella in front of the window.

“That was so embarrassing, oh my god,” Donghyuck says.

Taeil whirls around so he can point an accusing finger in Donghyuck’s direction. “You literally do not get to talk. You convinced me to hire someone I had to ban from the kitchen due to being a walking fire hazard because you had a crush on them and wanted to spend more time with them,” he says.

Donghyuck laughs at him. “You say that like hiring Jeno wasn’t basically the best decision you’ve ever made for Crumbles,” he points out. “He’s never picked a fight with a customer, or accidentally insulted one, or anything like that. Literally every single one of our customers love him, okay. And he’s brought you so much free publicity!”

“You were involved in that too,” Taeil says wearily.

“Yes, but would it have happened if you didn’t hire Jeno? That’s a no,” Donghyuck says smugly.

“Oh my god,” Taeil mouths silently, pressing a hand to his forehead. “Don’t you have a cake to bake?”

“It’s in the oven.”

Of course it is. “So you have a mess to clean up, then?” Taeil asks mildly.

Donghyuck visibly fidgets. “Well, maybe,” he hedges.

“I cleaned off the window because I made it a mess, so you have to clean up the kitchen,” Taeil says firmly. “It’s only fair. Go take care of it before it has time to settle.”

“Fine,” Donghyuck sighs, disappearing back into the kitchen. He reappears a moment later, though, looking a little hesitant. “Taeil?”

“Hyuck?”

“Once the cake is ready, will you try it and let me know how it is? I really want this to be perfect for Jeno,” Donghyuck says, worrying his bottom lip between his teeth.

Taeil smiles reassuringly at him. “Of course I will.”

Donghyuck flashes a bright grin at him before retreating into the kitchen. Taeil hears him humming a few moments later which can only mean that he’s started cleaning like he was instructed to do. Good.

Taeil drops his elbow onto the counter and props his chin against his head as he once again watches the rain pour down outside the window. His mind drifts back to the conversation he’d had with the hot customer and how he’d said he’d be seeing Taeil around; Taeil can only hope that he meant it, and that he’ll see him again soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter will hopefully be up within the week! come say hi/leave feedback/give me cookie ideas on [twitter](https://twitter.com/zeromiles5) and [cc](https://curiouscat.me/zeromiles5) if you'd like!
> 
> (and a million points to anyone who can figure out where all of my chapter titles are coming from, heh. even though chapter two's title might make it obvious.......)


	2. used to be mad love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a quick note -- i will be updating this fic every wednesday until it's complete! if that schedule changes for any reason though, i will mention it either here in the notes or on my twitter.

“Now, I need six dozen frosted dinosaur cookies,” the woman on the other end of the line says sternly, “and I need them to be perfect. And I need them to all be identical. Letting your apprentice decorate my cookies last time was…charitable, I suppose, but that won’t work for me this time.”

Taeil barely suppresses a sigh. Yes, he’d let Jungwoo finish the custom order last time, but that was because Jungwoo was even better at intricate piping than Taeil himself was. If it hadn’t been for Yuta mentioning that Jungwoo had been the one to ice most of the order when he cashed Mrs. Park out, she never would have known and there never would have been a problem. Because of that, though, he’s been listening to the older woman lecture him for ten minutes now; if she wasn’t such a valuable customer, he would have told her to fuck off and hung up eight minutes ago. Unfortunately, though, losing both her business and the customers she sends his way by word of mouth would really, _really_ hurt Crumbles’ bottom line.

“Yes, Mrs. Park,” he recites tonelessly. “I will make sure I am the one to prepare your order this time, from start to finish.”

“Excellent,” she says. “And your regular menu cookies, those are still twenty dollars per dozen, right?”

“They sure are,” Taeil says, lying through his teeth. She’d gotten it in her head somehow that this was the case, and had gotten royally offended when Jeno tried to charge her the normal rate of fifteen dollars per dozen. Ever since then, they’ve let it go. Taeil still feels like it’s a little unethical, but Yuta had managed to convince him that they had _tried_ to charge her the real price – she had just insisted otherwise, so arguing with her more would be a waste of energy.

“Well, my grandson also wants some of those pumpkin cookies you had in the fall, and I tried telling him that I’m sure those will be more expensive this time of year, but he insisted. So even though I fully expect to pay thirty dollars per dozen, I’ll also need six dozen of those.”

It takes genuine effort on Taeil’s part not to laugh out loud at that, but he manages. “Sure thing, Mrs. Park.” He listens to her talk for another minute or two while he scribbles a note on the whiteboard he keeps in the kitchen to charge her thirty dollars a dozen for the pumpkin spice cookies and breathes out a sigh of relief when she finally hangs up.

His peace is short lived, however.

“Oh, thank god, I thought you were never going to get off the phone,” Renjun says from where he’s leaning against the kitchen entryway. “Was it Mrs. Park again? What does she need now?”

Taeil narrows his eyes at him. “How many times have I told you and Jaemin that only employees are allowed in the kitchen? Do I need to remind you again that you don’t actually work here no matter how often you show up and hang around all day?”

Renjun shrugs, but he has a look on his face that can only mean terrible, terrible things for Taeil’s sanity. “Well, you’ve got bigger problems than that right now, and it was either I come in here and get you or Jeno…”

Taeil takes a deep breath and counts to ten silently in his head. “Okay, fine, if the only options are either you coming into the kitchen or Jeno coming into the kitchen, I can accept you coming in _just this once_ ,” he says, emphasizing the last bit so Renjun doesn’t get any ideas about having free reign in his kitchen. Again. “What’s gone so terribly wrong that you had to come back here to get me? Why couldn’t Doyoung handle it?”

Renjun’s grin is downright terrifying. “Doyoung’s kind of busy fighting with a customer right now.”

“What?” Taeil shrieks. “This is the second time this week! We’ve been incident free for so long!”

“I think it’s the same customer, according to Jeno’s description of the guy the first time it happened,” Renjun says cheerfully. “But hey, at least they’re fighting out on the sidewalk? So it’s not that bad?”

“Oh my god,” Taeil says, taking off at a run. If Doyoung is fighting with a customer outside, wearing his fucking _apron_ like Taeil has no doubt he is, then that’s even worse than Doyoung fighting with a customer inside the shop. At least inside, there’s only a small amount of people who might witness it. Outside, though? Anyone walking by could see. And this area of the city gets a _lot_ of foot traffic on nice days like this one.

“Oh my god,” Taeil repeats as he wrenches the door open. Doyoung and the man he’s currently arguing with are so loud that Taeil could hear their voices by the register and could make out clear words before he was even in reach of the door. “Doyoung! What are you doing?” he shouts from the top of the single step leading down to the sidewalk.

Doyoung freezes. “Taeil, hey,” he says, clearly stalling. “I was just…exchanging pleasantries with this charming young man here,” he says disdainfully.

The charming young man in question looks up at Taeil, and the sunlight reflecting off the assortment of piercings adorning his ears is almost blinding. “I just asked him politely how on earth he’s still employed after being so rude to a customer the other day, that’s all,” he says innocently.

“Politely, my ass,” Doyoung snarls, balling one of his hands into a fist. “You literally greeted me with _hey, fuckface_. Clearly whoever taught you manners did a terrible job.”

“Oh, fuck you,” the man says, lunging at Doyoung. Taeil just barely manages to jump off the step in time to get between them, or else it could have ended in disaster.

“Please just let me hit him,” Doyoung begs.

“Oh, please do,” the man answers, grinning wildly. “Bring it on, bitch.”

“No one is hitting anyone on my property!” Taeil shouts again. “Doyoung, you’re going to get us sued.”

“He was going to hit me first, and it would have been caught on video,” Doyoung says.

“No, it would not have been.”

Someone coughs. “Actually, yeah,” a voice Taeil recognizes as Jaemin says sheepishly. “I’m not even sorry.”

“See?” Doyoung says, but visibly deflates when Taeil glares at him. “Oh my god,” he mutters under his breath. “I’m sorry that I implied your parents did a bad job raising you.”

“And?” the man prompts.

Doyoung raises his eyebrows. “That’s literally the only thing I’m sorry about. That was uncalled for. Everything else I said was nothing but the truth.”

“Even the bit when you called him a trashy, bitchy asshole?” Jaemin chimes in.

“ _Everything_ ,” Doyoung affirms.

The man scoffs. “That’s where you’re wrong, sweetheart,” he tells Doyoung. “I might be a bitchy asshole, but I’m definitely not trashy. I get it though, we all often use our own insecurities to lash out at people, right?” he concludes with a wink, before turning on his heel and flouncing off in the opposite direction.

“Taeil,” Doyoung pleads.

“No,” Taeil answers. “I am not going to let you chase down a stranger so you can engage in a catfight on a public street in the middle of the afternoon, Doyoung!”

“Bye, doll!” the man shouts. It’s almost comical how quickly Doyoung’s face turns red after that; Taeil almost hopes Jaemin’s still recording, so he can watch it again later.

“I could kill him and make sure no one ever finds the body,” Doyoung tells Taeil as Taeil leads him inside.

“Mmm, maybe, but killing him in the middle of the street in broad daylight might make that a little hard,” Taeil says dryly. “Go into the back and take a breather, alright? Order me some pureed pumpkin while you’re at it, we just got an order for six dozen pumpkin spice cookies.”

Doyoung laughs incredulously. “Pumpkin spice cookies in April. Amazing,” he mutters as he walks away. “Some people, I swear to god.”

“This is why I love coming here,” Taeil hears a customer tell her friend. “There’s literally never a dull moment.”

She’s not entirely wrong, and Taeil doesn’t know if he loves it or hates it.

 

***

 

“Why are you forcing me to stay late again?” Donghyuck whines as he follows Taeil up the stairs to his apartment.

“Because we need to have a refresher course on professionalism in a workplace setting,” Taeil repeats for what’s probably the fiftieth time that day.

“And why are we having it up here instead of, you know, in the bakery?” Donghyuck asks.

“Because your boyfriend insisted we have it up here so he can visit my cat,” Taeil says, feeling his patience wearing thin.

“Oh,” Donghyuck says, sounding a lot more cheerful all of a sudden. “Aww. He loves her so much.”

Taeil rolls his eyes. “I’m aware.” Jeno’s tried to steal Sora multiple times, after all. Everyone knows that Jeno loves her maybe a little too much.

“Is he up here already?”

“Well, the door’s unlocked, so I’m assuming so,” Taeil says as he pushes the door open. Sure enough, the very first thing he sees is Jeno sitting cross legged on the floor, Sora plastered against his side and demanding he pay attention to her. He’s clearly lost in his own world, because he doesn’t even look up when Donghyuck sits on the ground next to them a safe distance away from them.

(Taeil loves his cat to bits and pieces, but it can’t be said she’s really fond of people in general. He and Jeno seem to be the only people she genuinely likes, and she barely tolerates anyone else on a good day. Taeil’s last ex probably still has the scars to prove it.)

“Taeil? That you?” Yuta calls from the kitchen.

“Obviously,” Taeil mutters, toeing off his shoes. He weaves around the teenagers making themselves at home on his living room floor and goes to find Yuta instead, accepting the beer Yuta hands him gratefully. “Thanks.”

Yuta grins at him. “I leave for two weeks to visit my parents and all hell breaks loose, huh?”

Taeil chuckles weakly. “Something like that, yeah.”

“Poor Taeil-ie, having to deal with hot strangers and Doyoung all by himself,” Yuta coos, reaching out and poking Taeil’s cheek. Taeil bats his hand away with a scowl. “Jungwoo should be here any second now, though,” Yuta says, turning serious in a matter of seconds. “No idea about Doie, though. He’s probably trying to delay the inevitable.”

“Is Doyoung getting fired? Is this gonna be like the Crumbles version of the red wedding?” Jeno asks loudly.

Yuta blinks twice before dissolving into hysterical giggles. “A Crumbles red wedding, oh my god,” he gasps. “I love that kid.”

“Taeil, Yuta, Woo is here,” Donghyuck shouts. “Oh, Doyoung too!”

“Sora, no,” Jeno whines, a second before Taeil sees a black and orange blur that can only be his cat streaking towards his bedroom. Donghyuck’s shouting must have startled her, he supposes.

“Go get ‘em, boss,” Yuta says, patting Taeil’s shoulder. Taeil knows he’s trying to be supportive, but he sticks his tongue out at Yuta anyways. Mostly because he can.

Much to Taeil’s surprise, Doyoung stands up before he can even say anything. “I know this meeting is about me, and I just wanted to apologize for my unprofessional behavior this week. It won’t happen again,” he says contritely, then makes a face. “Well, unless that guy comes in the store again. Then all bets are off.”

“Doyoung!” Jungwoo says, sounding scandalized. He, like Yuta, hadn’t been around for either of the incidents, but Donghyuck had gotten the video of the second fight from Jaemin and sent it to the groupchat Taeil had set up from Crumbles’ employees the second he’d clocked out yesterday. Jungwoo’s definitely seen the video by now, so Taeil doesn’t know why he’s acting so shocked that Doyoung is doubling down on wanting to fight that guy again.

“What?” Doyoung protests. “Jungwoo. I know you believe in love at first sight, right?” When Jungwoo nods, Doyoung continues. “Well. Hate at first sight is a thing too, and the second I saw that dude’s face I wanted to strangle him with my bare hands. I literally couldn’t help myself. It was a biological, natural reaction. Science.”

“Did you fail every science class you’ve ever taken?” Yuta asks him. “Because that literally couldn’t be more wrong.”

“Fuck off, Yuta,” Doyoung says sweetly. “It’s just facts, even though I know they’re hard for you to accept.”

“Okay, that’s enough,” Taeil says quickly. “It’s not that big of a deal, no one recorded the first incident, and I managed to bribe Jaemin so he wouldn’t post the video of the second incident on twitter, so I think we’re in the clear here.”

“I don’t think anyone live tweeted this one, either,” Jeno says helpfully. “Renjun and I checked. Well, Renjun checked. He says you owe him now for doing your IT work for you.”

Taeil snorts derisively. “Trust me, Jaemin’s bribe is big enough that they could both eat nothing but cookies for an entire week and they still wouldn’t run out.”

“I’m sure he’s good with that,” Donghyuck says as he reaches out and grabs Jeno’s hand. “Are we done yet? I want to go home.”

Yuta shakes his head. “Nope, I’ve got one more thing. Why didn’t anyone tell me that someone’s moving into the empty store across the street?”

Taeil gives Yuta a blank look, and a quick glance around the room tells him that he’s not the only one. “What are you talking about? We haven’t seen anyone over there in ages,” he says eventually.

“What, so I was just seeing things when I saw some delivery people moving in an industrial oven earlier?” Yuta says sarcastically. “Nice. Thanks.”

Jeno’s eyes go so wide that Taeil’s half afraid that the kid’s eyeballs are about to pop right out of their sockets. “No, no!” he says quickly and so, so earnestly. “We just didn’t see anything ourselves, that’s all. If you saw delivery people, then there’s definitely someone moving in to the gross smoothie place.”

“He was just fucking with us, babe,” Donghyuck sighs when Yuta throws his head back and laughs uproariously.

“Oh,” Jeno says, turning red.

Yuta wheezes out a breath, reaching up to wipe his eyes. “Oh god, that was great. Never change, Jeno,” he says, shaking his head. “But seriously, I know I was out of the country and I’m a little out of the loop since Jaemin isn’t around to record everything all the time –”

“You really should just go ahead and hire him and Renjun already,” Jungwoo tells Taeil reproachfully.

“I’ve told you all multiple times that I’m not hiring anyone else until we can be sure that our recent increase in sales and traffic isn’t temporary,” Taeil says patiently.

“Jaemin could be our social media person!” Jungwoo argues. “We have a following on Twitter already, we need to capitalize on that! Open an Instagram account!”

That’s…something to think about, actually, but this isn’t the time. Taeil tells Jungwoo as such and only rolls his eyes a little bit when Jungwoo crosses his arms over his chest and pouts.

“Well. Anyways. Like I was saying before I was so _rudely_ interrupted,” Yuta says, shooting Jungwoo a dark look, “I know I’m a little out of the loop right now, but you really had no idea, Taeil? You haven’t seen anyone across the street at all? No uptight professionals came into the shop wanting to know about our quarterly profits and traffic numbers? Nothing?”

Donghyuck leans forward. “Hey, Taeil, didn’t that hot guy you embarrassed yourself in front of last week ask about the smoothie shop?”

Taeil frowns. “Huh. I don’t remember exactly what we talked about,” he says, like he hasn’t replayed their conversation in his head probably a thousand times in the last ten days, “but I think it just kind of came up as part of the conversation? He didn’t ask me specifically about it or anything.”

“Okay,” Yuta drawls. “Well, I’m sure they’ll come over and introduce themselves eventually, right?”

“Right,” Donghyuck agrees instantly. “Can I go home now?”

“Yes, Hyuck, you can go home now,” Taeil says wearily. “Make sure Jeno doesn’t try to sneak out with my cat again, please.”

Jeno sighs dramatically. “Can you please stop bringing that up all the time? It only happened like three times.”

“Never,” Taeil promises him.

 

***

 

It turns out that they would have known that a new business was moving into the storefront across the street by the next day, anyways.

When Taeil comes downstairs at nine AM to start working on Mrs Park’s custom order the morning after their employee meeting, there’s contractors going in and out of the building. According to Jungwoo, who’d opened Crumbles that morning, the contractors had arrived before they’d even opened for the day at seven.

Five days later, the contractors have been replaced with five different cars parked in the street.

“I’m going to go say hi,” Taeil decides as he clocks out for his lunch break. “Introduce myself. It’s what good neighbors do, right?”

Donghyuck gives him a pleading look. “I wanted to be the one to go over and introduce us to them,” he whines. “You let Yuta talk to the hipsters.”

“Do I need to remind you that Yuta is a co-owner of this bakery?”

A look of surprise flits over Donghyuck’s face. “Huh. I literally always forget that.”

Speak of the devil and he will appear or something, because Yuta chooses that moment to walk in through the front door of Crumbles. “Sup, guys?” he asks. “Taeil-ie, wanna go say hi to the new neighbors before I clock in? I figured you might wanna come with me this time,” he says. If Taeil didn’t know better, he’d swear that Yuta had overheard his and Donghyuck’s previous conversation.

“I was about to go over there, yeah,” Taeil agrees. “Should I bring them some cookies?”

“Is that a real question?” Donghyuck asks.

“I have to agree with Hyuckie, here,” Yuta says.

Taeil sighs and reaches for a box. “Fine,” he says, pulling the tray of chocolate chip cookies out of the display case. They’re a classic for a reason, he figures, so he can’t go wrong with them.

“Boring,” Donghyuck says. “Give them some of the hot cocoa cookies.”

Taeil pauses in filling up the box to give Donghyuck a pointed look. “But if I do that, there’s a chance that they might really like them and then you’ll have to fight even more customers for them. Or, you know, hide the entire tray before a rush again.”

Donghyuck chuckles awkwardly. “Uh, you heard about that?”

“Of course he did, it was hilarious,” Yuta answers for him. “You thought you were being so sneaky, but we all knew what you did.”

“I can’t trust anyone around here,” Donghyuck mutters. Taeil ignores him in favor of closing the box and tying it closed with the ribbon Yuta passes him.

Yuta reaches out and ruffles Donghyuck’s hair. “We’ll be back soon, don’t burn the place down while we’re gone!”

“Doie’s in the office if it gets really busy and you need him,” Taeil adds. “And Jungwoo’s in the kitchen, but he’s testing recipes today so you should get Doyoung first –”

Donghyuck groans. “Oh my god, Taeil, I know how this works. Just go already.”

Taeil allows Yuta, clearly feeling impatient, to grab him by the arm and lead him out of the shop. “You know he hates it when you mess with his hair,” Taeil chides Yuta gently once the door is closed behind them.

Yuta grins. “Why do you think I do it?” he asks. “God, it’s so nice out today.”

Taeil has to agree. It’s early May, which means summer will be on them before they know it, but these last few days of spring are worth savoring. “We should prop the door open when we get back,” Taeil says as they wait for the light to turn green.

“Hell yes,” Yuta says happily.

The door to the storefront across the street is locked, of course, but Yuta – never one to be shy – knocks insistently until a man with dark hair and kind eyes opens the door. His smile looks friendly, but Taeil doesn’t miss how his expression becomes more guarded once he sees the box in Taeil’s hands. “Hello,” he says.

“Hi! I’m Yuta, and this is Taeil, and we’re the owners of Crumbles across the street. We just wanted to stop in and introduce ourselves,” Yuta rushes out.

“Thank you,” the man says, visibly hesitating for a second before continuing. “I’m Kun, it’s nice to meet you guys. Come on in.”

“Who was at the door?” a kid with a deep voice who looks like he can’t be much older than Donghyuck and Jeno shouts. He’s standing on a ladder, paintbrush in hand, and Taeil winces as he lets the paintbrush drop to the floor carelessly before scrambling back down to the ground.

“Our new neighbors,” Kun tells him.

“The cookie people?” the kid asks excitedly. “Ooh, did you bring us some?” he adds, clearly having spotted the box in Taeil’s hands.

“Yeah,” Taeil says, exchanging a confused look with Yuta. He’s never seen this kid before, and Taeil doesn’t often forget customers. As tall and loud as this kid is, he’s sure that he would have heard about him even if he had visited when Taeil wasn’t at the shop. He makes grabby hands for the box of cookies, and Taeil passes them over bemusedly.

“Why are we yelling?” a new voice asks. It sounds familiar enough, but Taeil can’t place it.

Kun closes his eyes. “Here we go,” he mutters, just loud enough for Taeil to hear him. He’s confused for a second, but it suddenly makes sense when the man that Doyoung fought with twice already walks out of the doorway that Taeil assumes leads to the kitchen area.

“What are you doing here?” Taeil blurts out before he can stop himself.

“Holy shit,” Yuta whispers next to him.

The man plants his hands on his hips and stares at Taeil. “I’m helping my best friend in the whole wide world set up his new business,” he says, sickeningly sweetly. “Did you finally fire your demon of an employee?”

“No, I didn’t fire him, he’s at the bakery working on this month’s budget right now,” Taeil says dumbly. “Not that you needed to know all of that,” he adds, shaking his head at himself.

The man hums. “Hmm. I guess you’re loyal, which has to count for something,” he says mysteriously. “I think I approve. Let me get the person you really want to see.”

“Ten, no,” Kun starts.

Ten – and what kind of name is that, anyway? – ignores him. “Johnny!” he shouts. “Your new neighbors are here!”

“Oh, really?” says the voice that’s been haunting Taeil’s thoughts for the last two and a half weeks, just before the hot customer Taeil had made a fool out of himself in front of himself appears. His face does a weird thing when he sees Taeil standing there; like four different expressions flit across his face in a matter of seconds, and Taeil thinks he looks vaguely guilty once his expression finally settles. “Hey,” he says.

Hey, he says, Taeil thinks confusedly. He has absolutely no idea what is happening right now. None.

“What is happening,” Yuta says, an echo of Taeil’s own thoughts, as he reaches out and clutches Taeil’s sleeve. “Is this the hot customer?”

“Yes,” Taeil hisses. He would have to be a fool to not notice how the man who was formerly known simply as _hot customer_ but seems to be actually named Johnny’s face lights up at that.

“Ah,” Yuta says. “So were you scoping out the neighborhood the day you stopped by Crumbles?”

Johnny shrugs sheepishly. “Yeah,” he replies. “It would have been better if I hadn’t gone on a rainy day, but I think it worked out, I learned everything that I needed to know,” he continues, winking at Taeil conspiratorially.

Taeil suddenly feels vaguely offended, but he’s not sure why.

“That’s why I went back on a not shitty day to make sure that you weren’t lying about being busy when it wasn’t rainy,” Ten interjects, still staring intensely at Taeil. “I couldn’t Johnny open his bakery in a dead part of the city, now could I?”

“I’m sorry – bakery?” Taeil echoes.

The kid, who had been watching their conversation with interest, nods enthusiastically. “Yeah, a bakery! Don’t worry, Johnny doesn’t make cookies though,” he adds, clearly picking up on the growing tension in the room.

“Interesting,” Taeil says coldly. He sees Yuta wince next to him, but Taeil doesn’t care. “It would have been nice to know that you were considering opening a business on this street when you asked me all kinds of questions about mine, let alone one that would be my direct competitor. Or when you sent someone else to verify what I told you, even.”

Johnny grimaces. “Oops?” he says weakly.

 _Oops_. That’s all the man has to say for himself. Amazing.

“I think we should go,” Yuta says, tugging on Taeil’s sleeve. “I’d say it was nice to meet you all, but apparently most of you have already met my partner, so maybe not,” he adds, and Taeil smiles a little at Yuta’s petty side coming through.

“Let me walk you out,” Johnny says, moving towards them. He freezes in place when Taeil glares at him.

“Not necessary,” Taeil answers. “Let’s go, Yuta.”

The last thing they hear before the door to what is apparently Johnny’s _bakery_ is Kun sighing and saying, “God damn it, Johnny, I told you that was a terrible idea!”

“Okay, slow down a little and talk to me,” Yuta says on the walk back over to Crumbles, sounding a little breathless.

“Oh, shit,” Taeil says, slowing his stride immediately despite the fact that they’re literally in the middle of the street. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine, I know you walk too fast when you’re upset,” Yuta says dismissively. “Are you alright?”

Taeil opens the door to Crumbles more forcefully than he meant to and stumbles a little. “Nope.”

“What’s with the face?” Doyoung, who must have finished with the budget while Taeil and Yuta were gone, shouts from the counter. “Are the hipster assholes back or something?”

“Oh, no,” Yuta answers, letting Taeil seethe in his indignant anger. “Uh. Remember how Hyuck mentioned last night that someone did ask about the place where the smoothie shop used to be while I was gone?”

“Hot customer, yeah,” Doyoung nods.

Donghyuck makes an excited noise and slams his hands down on the top of the display case. “No way,” he squeaks.

“Oh, yeah,” Yuta says. “Hot customer is named Johnny, and he’s opening a bakery across the street,” he continues, dissolving into giggles. Donghyuck soon joins him, but the hilarity of the situation is lost on Taeil.

“I guess you really will be seeing more of him,” Donghyuck chokes out. “Oh man, this is too good.”

Taeil scowls. “I will not. He tricked me, and now he’s my direct competitor. We’re rivals now, Hyuck. This is war, and I’m going to win.”

Doyoung’s eyebrows shoot up. “Jesus, Taeil, I get that you’re pissed, and I would be too! But don’t you think you’re being a little overdramatic here?”

“He used me,” Taeil says.

“Really? Did he use you, or did your brain to mouth filter shut down in front of a guy you were attracted to in a way that just happened to benefit him?” Doyoung presses.

“Jesus, Doyoung, let him live,” Donghyuck says defensively.

Taeil laughs humorlessly. “It’s fine, Hyuckie,” he says. “But Doyoung. You know that guy you keep fighting with? Turns out his name is Ten. I know this because he’s friends with Johnny and also came in Crumbles just to scope us out. I guess he thought I was lying when I said that we’re usually pretty busy.”

An outraged expression forms on Doyoung’s face. “You’re fucking kidding me.”

“Nope.”

“He was a _spy_ ,” Yuta says gleefully. Taeil has a feeling that he’s enjoying this a little too much, considering how angry he’d been when they’d realized what was happening just a few minutes before. Then again, Taeil supposes, there is a difference between needling Doyoung and what went down when they were in Johnny’s soon to be bakery.

“I’m going to go kill him,” Doyoung grits out, shifting as if he’s about to move from his spot by the counter. Before he can, though, Donghyuck moves forward and jumps onto Doyoung’s back like a koala, knocking them both down to the ground.

“No murder,” Donghyuck says petulantly.

“Get off of me,” Doyoung wheezes.

“Don’t move until he promises not to kill Ten,” Taeil instructs Donghyuck.

Donghyuck grins up at him. “You’re the boss.”

“Okay, fine,” Doyoung concedes. “No murder. But it’s still a war, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Taeil nods firmly. “This is war. Johnny and I are rivals now.”

“You sound _very_ disappointed by that fact,” Yuta points out.

“Fuck off,” Taeil replies, plastering a smile on his face as the front door to Crumbles opens. This might be war, but he still has a business to run.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come say hi/tell me about your favorite cookies on [twitter](https://twitter.com/zeromiles5) or [cc](https://curiouscat.me/zeromiles5)! see y'all next wednesday!


	3. nightmare dressed like a daydream

_And you’re the only thing that’s going on in my mind, taking over my life a second time / I don’t have the capacity for fucking, you’re meant to be helping me_ –

“Hey,” Taeil protests when someone yanks his headphones out of his ears. He reaches up unthinkingly to rub his right ear to soothe the sting, and realizes too late that he, you know, has cookie dough on his hands since he’d been combining ingredients with his hands rather than the stand mixers. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he grumbles, using the back of his hand to wipe off the cookie dough he just smeared on the shell of his ear.

Jungwoo giggles from behind him. “Wow, you’re kind of a mess right now.”

“Explain,” Taeil demands.

Jungwoo takes a deep breath. “First of all, you know I love your singing voice, but you were singing so loud that we’ve had customers asking for the last hour where the live music is coming from. A little girl told me you sounded so sad that she was sure that someone must have died.”

“My hopes and dreams died a very tragic death, Jungwoo,” Taeil retorts.

“…okay,” Jungwoo says. “No offense, Taeil, but I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that for both of our sakes. Second, you’ve singlehandedly baked so many cookies today that we wouldn’t get through them all in three days unless we go viral on social media and get slammed with customers as a result again. And third, you’re way overreacting.”

“I am, am I?” Taeil says sarcastically. “How so?”

Jungwoo sighs and taps his foot impatiently against the floor. “Doyoung filled me in on everything that you found out yesterday, right? He wanted me to be a part of your war or whatever, but it sounded like Doyoung being, well. You know. Doyoung again. So I went across the street to find out for myself what was happening, and I met a nice young man –”

“A nice young man,” Taeil echoes incredulously, interrupting Jungwoo. “Sorry, Woo, but are you a middle aged white mom or something?”

“I understand that you’re hurting right now and not yourself, so I’m going to ignore that too,” Jungwoo sniffs. “As I was saying, I met a nice young man with the prettiest dimples ever, and he explained the whole situation to me. It was just a big misunderstanding, Taeil.”

“Oh, really.”

“Yes!” Jungwoo says impatiently. “Jaehyun explained it all to me. Seriously. Johnny, the guy you met? He is opening a bakery, but it’s not like ours at all. He makes wedding cakes mostly, and he made a cake for some rich couple and they loved it and recommended it to all of their friends so he’s been making a lot of fancy wedding cakes for rich people lately and decided he needed a bigger space, because Jaehyun said they were trying to make two or three cakes a weekend crammed into a little kitchen and wanted to all kill each other after a while. And Johnny got a really good deal from the hipsters that owned the space before because they lost a lot of money, I guess? They decided to open a store so that they could have some cakes ready to go for last minute customers, but it’s not a bakery bakery like us. See? Misunderstanding!” he concludes, grinning proudly.

Taeil blinks rapidly at him. “Wow, I have so many questions. Like, who is Jaehyun? Am I supposed to know who he is?”

Jungwoo pouts. “That’s the nice young man with the pretty dimples.”

Taeil doesn’t know why he expected anything else from Jungwoo, honestly. “And he just…told you all of that?”

“I can be very persuasive, Taeil. Come on. I can get boys to tell me anything I want to hear.”

“Fine,” Taeil concedes. “What was the point of this, though?”

Jungwoo groans exasperatedly. “Taeil, you can’t be serious. The point is obvious? You’re moping because you thought a hot guy was secretly out to undermine you, but I went and did some research and discovered you’re totally overreacting? What’s not to get?”

“I don’t know…”

“Just think about it, yeah?” Jungwoo says encouragingly, pulling Taeil into a hug. “Do you want me to take over for you in the kitchen? You’ve had a long day. Maybe you should go upstairs and see if Sora will cuddle with you for a few minutes.”

Taeil glances surreptitiously at the pile of dishes in the sink. It wouldn’t surprise him if nearly every bowl in the kitchen is dirty right now, because he really _did_ make a lot of cookies today. “I’ll just go out to the front, but if you don’t mind taking over for me in here, that would be great.”

“Excellent!” Jungwoo chirps. “Go, take a break. Jeno and Doyoung are out there. Maybe you should tell Doyoung what I just told you.”

Taeil shrugs noncommittally, leaving Jungwoo behind in the kitchen with a small wave. There’s the normal, steady stream of customers that Taeil’s come to expect from Crumbles these days, but with the amount of cookies already loaded into the display case (and on the register itself, he notices) it’s nothing that Jeno can’t handle alone. “Doyoung,” Taeil says. “You got a minute?”

Doyoung nods almost resignedly, then follows Taeil silently through the kitchen to the small office at the back of the building. The water’s running and Jungwoo’s muttering angrily to himself, which can only mean he decided to tackle the dishes first. Good, Taeil thinks.

Once the door’s closed securely behind them, Doyoung collapses into one of the chairs in front of the desk. “God, my feet are killing me,” he whines.

Taeil glances down at Doyoung’s feet. “I’ve told you a million times not to wear new shoes to work,” he reminds him.

Doyoung hums thoughtfully. “Eh, it’s worth it,” he says after a moment. “But what’s up? Does this have to do with Jungwoo disappearing during his break? We were busy, so I didn’t see what direction he went in when he left the store.”

Taeil leans back in his chair and props his feet up on the desk; it’s something Yuta hates, but Yuta’s not here right now to tell him off for doing it, so. “You have three guesses about where he went, and the first two don’t count.”

Doyoung groans. “He went to the other bakery.”

“He went to the other bakery,” Taeil confirms, and launches into a brief rundown of what Jungwoo had told him. “So maybe I was being a little overdramatic yesterday,” he concludes.

Doyoung shakes his head vehemently. “Taeil. No. I know you want to think this guy’s a misunderstood angel because you want to fuck him –”

"What? No!" Taeil protests. "I don't want to fuck him." 

Doyoung gives him a flat look. “Oh, come on Taeil, I’ve known you for how long now? Five years? Don’t even deny it. That’s why you’re so irritated, because you _want_ this to be a misunderstanding, and Jungwoo’s too nice for this cruel world so he believes everything people say him. He’s an optimist.”

Taeil laughs skeptically. “Doie. I hate to break it to you, but Jungwoo’s a lot more conniving than you’re giving him credit for. Not in a bad way!” he says quickly when Doyoung’s eyebrows knit together, “but he’s not some innocent angel baby either.”  

“Whatever,” Doyoung says dismissively. “But the point here is that Johnny still used you, Taeil. He came in here and flirted with you to get the information he wanted, and then he sent in the most intolerable person I’ve literally ever encountered in here to spy some more. That’s not cool, no matter how badly you want to bang him. Think with your head, not your dick. This is Crumbles we’re talking about, here.”

“Okay, fine,” Taeil says, exhaling loudly. “The rivalry’s not dead. We’re still in a war with them.”

Doyoung claps excitedly. “I knew you’d see reason.”

 

***

 

**THE SALT SQUAD (6)**

**Taeil**

Who changed the name of the groupchat?

**Jeno**

Hyuckie did.

**Donghyuck**

me!!

**Taeil**

It’s cute. I like it.

**Jungwoo**

What?

**Taeil**

We’re the salt squad because we’re bakers, right?  
Like I said, that’s cute.

**Donghyuck**

…he can’t be serious

**Yuta**

lmao Hyuck, he’s totally serious

Taeil, he’s calling you and Doie salty bitches

**Donghyuck**

N O

I’m calling us ALL salty bitches Yuta, god

**Yuta**

sorry, he’s calling us ALL salty bitches, Taeil

**Taeil**

…alright, then.

**Donghyuck**

lmao he still doesn’t get it, does he

**Yuta**

nope!!

 

***

 

“Good morning, Taeil!” Jungwoo sings as he breezes through the door. He’s got a cup of coffee clutched in each of his hands, and startlingly large sunglasses covering half of his face it seems like. “I have a feeling it’s going to be a wonderful day, don’t you?”

Taeil looks up from the order form he’d been filling out confusedly. “You’re not Donghyuck.”

“Unless something’s changed since I last looked in the mirror, nope, I’m not,” Jungwoo replies, sliding one of the cups across the counter to Taeil. “He and I switched shifts today, he’s closing with Yuta tonight. Jeno’s only class got cancelled so they decided they wanted to go do something fun today before their exams start next week.”

“Aww, that’s adorable,” Taeil says, smiling fondly. “Alright, do you want to be in the kitchen today, or in the front?”

Jungwoo tilts his sunglasses down his nose, letting Taeil see how tired he looks. “Kitchen duty,” he says immediately. “I have to be honest, I’m a little hungover, so I’m not sure I could deal with customers today.”

“You went clubbing on a Tuesday night?”

“Only God can judge me, Taeil!”

“Fine, whatever,” Taeil says, giving up. This is a battle he knows he won’t win. “But if I need you out here, you better come out and you better have a smile on your face, got it?”

“Got it, boss,” Jungwoo answers with a brief salute before wandering towards the back of the building. Taeil watches him go with a bemused yet fond shake of his head.

Wednesdays are probably the least busy days at Crumbles, and this morning is no exception. Taeil doesn’t have to call Jungwoo out of the kitchen to help at any point, something that he has no doubt Jungwoo is relieved about. Taeil even has time to sit down on the stool they keep behind the counter and just take a deep breath to center himself around ten am. They’ll get busier again as lunch approaches, which is why Yuta’s scheduled to come in at noon again, but for now Taeil closes his eyes and appreciates the brief moment of peace.

The tinkling of the bell attached to the front door jerks Taeil from his reverie, and any peaceful thoughts or feelings he’d been enjoying beforehand disappear in the blink of an eye when he sees Johnny closing the door gently behind himself.

“You,” Taeil says accusingly as Johnny walks up to the counter.

“Me,” Johnny agrees, folding his hands behind his back. “How are you doing, Taeil? It is Taeil, right? You never actually gave me your name, you know, I had to ask Kun if he knew it,” he says, having the nerve to sound like he’s _scolding_ Taeil.

“I was doing a lot better two minutes ago,” Taeil replies, unable to keep the bitterness he’s feeling out of his voice. “Was there something you needed, neighbor?”

Johnny’s easy smile slips off his face. “Okay, listen. I know you’re really mad at me about that and you think we’re about to be like bitter rivals, but it’s not like that.”

Taeil slides off the stool so he can lean against the counter. “Really,” he says sarcastically. “So you’re not opening a bakery across the street from my bakery?”

“Well, I am,” Johnny winces, “but it’s not like yours at all. I make cakes, Taeil,” he says firmly, as if that’s supposed to mean something to him.

“And?” Taeil asks.

Johnny sighs. “I pretty much only do custom orders. Like for weddings and special events like baby showers and birthday parties. I mean, yeah, I’ll have some cakes in the display case for whoever walks in needing one in a pinch, but ninety-five percent of my business will come from those custom orders and not from random people walking in off the street like you. It’s more exclusive than premade cookies.”

Taeil’s eyebrows had steadily risen while Johnny had been speaking, but his implication that his business is somehow better than Crumbles because he makes fucking _cakes_ is too much to take.

“Wait, shit, that came out wrong,” Johnny says apologetically, but it’s too late.

“You think that your business is _more exclusive than mine_ because you only do custom orders?” Taeil demands. “And you actually think I only sell premade cookies? We make every single cookie we sell in the shop fresh from scratch _daily_ , I made enough cookies yesterday alone to feed an entire fucking army, Johnny! One of my employees spent three hours washing dishes once he finally convinced me to leave the kitchen!”

Johnny holds his hands up placatingly. “Taeil, please calm down. I didn’t mean it quite like that.”

“But you meant some of it!” Taeil shrieks, beyond reason now. He knows that he probably looks and sounds like he’s losing his mind or something, but he doesn’t have the capacity to get his emotions in check at the moment. “And I can’t be certain that you’re not out to undermine me and my business! Okay, maybe you don’t sell quick things to the riff raff walking in off the street right now, but what happens when people start coming in asking for that? And that demon with all the piercings you sent in here to cause a scene multiple times convinces you that it’s a good idea because he clearly has it out for at least one of my employees and you start making those tiny adorable cupcakes that are all sugar and no substance whatsoever with mountains of buttercream on top that are super trendy right now? And then suddenly you have more customers than you can shake a fucking stick at while I lose more and more business each day until I have to fire my employees one by one and eventually close down my shop, all because an asshole who makes cakes moved in across the street!” Taeil finishes, sucking in a deep breath. He’s so worked up he’d almost forgotten to breathe while he was ranting at Johnny, and he’s feeling completely winded.

“Please breathe,” Johnny says, sounding alarmed.

“If I could, I would hold my breath until I passed out like a toddler having a tantrum right now just to spite you, but my brain refuses to let me do that,” Taeil informs him.

Johnny nods. “You know, I can’t say I blame you. What I said was pretty shitty, and I really am sorry. For both that and for what happened when we first met. You have no idea. But please, Taeil, let me explain. It was –”

“If you say that it was a ‘ _misunderstanding’_ ,” Taeil says, using finger quotes to make his point, “then I will stand here and scream as loud as I can until you walk out that door.”

“But –”

Taeil opens his mouth and takes another deep breath in preparation, just in case Johnny tries to call his bluff. There’s no customers in the store, and Jungwoo probably has headphones in – if he starts screaming like a child right now, there’s literally no one around to see it except Johnny, and he doesn’t give a damn about what Johnny thinks.

(That’s a lie. That’s such a lie. Even now that Taeil knows Johnny is a snake, as Donghyuck would say, Taeil is still stupidly, wildly attracted to him. If Johnny suggested they find a quiet place to fuck out their problems or whatever, Taeil would be one hundred percent down. It’s only his pride and the fact that he is, in fact, standing in his shop during business hours that’s keeping him from suggesting it himself.)

“Fine!” Johnny relents. “There’s no way I’m getting anywhere with you today, is there?”

“Not a chance,” Taeil retorts immediately. “You should probably go.”

Johnny sighs. “Yeah,” he agrees quietly. “I probably should. But for what it’s worth, Taeil, I really am sorry. I don’t always think things through all the way, and it’s happened twice now where you’re concerned. I’m not sure why, but that’s the truth,” he trails off, shaking his head. “I’ll see you around, I guess.”

 _No, you won’t_ is on the tip of Taeil’s tongue, but it doesn’t come out. Instead he watches Johnny leave silently, then takes a step back so he can sit down on the stool and bury his head in his hands and try to process what just happened.

“Wow,” Jungwoo says, suddenly appearing in front of Taeil with a tray of oatmeal raisin cookies ready to go in the display case. “That was some quality early morning entertainment. I don’t even feel hungover anymore! It was that good.”

Taeil moves his hands away from his face so he can glance down at his watch. “It’s already after ten. It’s not early morning anymore.”

“Is that really what you got from what I said?” Jungwoo asks disbelievingly as he swaps out the tray in his hands for one of the empty ones in the display case. “Jesus, Taeil, I’ve literally never seen you lose it like that before. Hyuck is gonna be so sad that he missed this. You’re really into that guy, aren’t you? All of this is just you having a crush on him and not knowing what to do with it, huh.”

“What?” Taeil sputters. “Where on earth did you get that idea? I don’t even know him!”

Jungwoo slams the display case closed forcefully enough that Taeil gives him a dirty look. It doesn’t seem to faze him though, of course. “Isn’t that the problem? That you want to know him? But now he’ll never be anything but the hot cake shop owner across the street you’re holding a petty grudge against?” he says shrewdly.

“It’s nothing like that, I swear,” Taeil says weakly.

Jungwoo smiles reassuringly at him, his demeanor changing in an instant. “Okay, Taeil,” he says soothingly, reaching out to rub Taeil’s shoulder gently. “I believe you.”

 

***

 

**THE SALT SQUAD (6)**

**Jungwoo**

God I’m so glad I traded shifts with Hyuck today

the cake guy came in and Taeil lost his shit

it was AMAZING, is he always this embarrassing when  
he has a crush on someone?

**Yuta**

EXPLAIN. NOW.

 

**Doyoung**

Jesus, Yuta, calm down

 

**Jungwoo**

the cake guy came in to apologize I guess?? but Taeil was  
NOT having it omg, like I said he flipped out and was legit  
screaming at the guy

it was amazing

and then when cake guy left he was all “I stop thinking  
when you’re around and idk why” which was hilarious  
lmao because it’s so obvious why

 

**Donghyuck**

ARE YOU KIDDING ME

 

**Taeil**

Jungwoo.

 

**Yuta**

OMG

TAEIL YOU’RE SO INTO HIM I CAN’T BELIEVE  
THIS

THIS IS COLLEGE ALL OVER AGAIN

 

**Jungwoo**

Taeil tried telling me he doesn’t like the guy lol

 

**Taeil**

YUTA.

 

**Jeno**

what happened in college??

 

**Taeil**

Jesus, not you too

 

**Yuta**

remember Sicheng, Taeil???

this is the Sicheng situation ALL OVER AGAIN

remember when he complimented your new shirt  
after that biology lecture and you literally started  
stripping down in the middle of the hallway to give  
it to him?

 

**Taeil**

Jesus Christ Yuta, did you really have to go there??

I STILL have nightmares about that

 

**Yuta**

as you SHOULD tbh, I’m still embarrassed over that  
too and it was six years ago

but anyways

you like this johnny dude SO MUCH omg just go over  
there and tell him you should fuck it out already

problem solved!

 

**Taeil**

This is an extremely unprofessional conversation  
to have in a group chat that includes all of our  
employees, Yuta.

 

**Doyoung**

You weren’t concerned about being professional  
when you were yelling at Johnny earlier, were you?

 

**Donghyuck**

THERE’S VIDEO??? JUNGWOO YOU LEGEND

 

**Doyoung**

No. I pulled the security tapes.

 

**Taeil**

You’re all fired. Every single one of you.

 

***

 

No one listens to him, of course. Yuta’s already in the kitchen when Taeil slips into Crumbles just before five am the next morning, and he’d woken up to a text from Jeno assuring him that he’d be at the shop by eight like scheduled.

Yuta takes one look at Taeil’s face and pulls him into a hug.

“I love you, you know that right?” he murmurs against Taeil’s head.

“I know,” Taeil replies, sinking into Yuta’s hold. “This just sucks.”

“I saw the security footage,” Yuta says cautiously, letting go of Taeil and stepping just far enough away that Taeil can see his face clearly.

Taeil closes his eyes. “Please tell me that no one else has seen it.”

Yuta shakes his head immediately. “I deleted it and everything,” he assures Taeil. “But like, I have to be honest here, Taeil. I don’t blame you for getting mad. What he said really sucked. I mean, did you overreact? Yeah, probably. Especially when he tried to apologize and you weren’t having any of it.  But I would have gotten pissed over what he said too.”

Taeil nods slowly. “Alright,” he says, pulling open the fridge to grab some eggs. “What do you think about all of this, anyways?”

Yuta’s silent for a couple moments, pretty clearly gathering his thoughts. Taeil’s used to this by now, so he gathers the rest of the ingredients he needs for peanut butter thumbprint cookies.

“Well, first of all, you have a crush the size of the moon on him. Or would, if you knew him better. As it stands right now it’s infatuation, which is almost worse because you really do know almost nothing about him,” Yuta begins once Taeil’s finished creaming white and brown sugars into the butter in one of their many stand mixers. “Which is totally affecting your reactions to him, Taeilie, you’re terrible at figuring out how to deal with people you’re actually interested in.”

Sometimes Taeil forgets that Yuta was a psychology major up until their junior year of university, when he had switched to business once he and Taeil had decided they were going to go for it and open Crumbles once they’d graduated. “Yes, like Sicheng, I know. Now please don’t mention that again,” Taeil grumbles, cracking an egg into the bowl. “Give me one minute,” he adds, turning the mixer back on to beat the egg into the butter and sugar mixture.

“I can’t promise not to mention that ever again, but I’ll put it to rest for a while,” Yuta agrees, sliding two cookie sheets out of the oven and putting them to the side to allow the domino cookies he’d started preparing before Taeil had arrived to cool. “Go ahead and finish your dough, I can wait,” he adds encouragingly, and Taeil does just that. He even lines the cookie sheets Taeil’s going to need with parchment paper, a sure indication that Yuta’s feeling guilty over something.

Taeil knows that Yuta will get to whatever’s bothering him eventually, though. He’s always been a strong believer in clear, open communication with others. “What about Johnny himself, you think?” Taeil asks. He opens one of the drawers next to the sinks and retrieves a pair of gloves, pulling them on so he can start forming the peanut butter thumbprints themselves.

Yuta makes a contemplative noise. “I think he seems like a decent guy who made a couple of mistakes for some reason,” he says decisively. “Maybe he was too wrapped up in trying to decide if he should move his business to this area, maybe he was distracted by how much he wanted to fuck you – no, hear me out,” Yuta says when Taeil tries to protest. “He gets under your skin, obviously, but you clearly get under his too. Or have you forgotten what came out of his mouth yesterday? Thought so,” he says smugly when Taeil falls silent.

“I hate you sometimes,” Taeil says, rolling a ball of dough between his palms in a practiced motion.

Yuta snorts. “No, you don’t. Also, one last thing and I promise we can change the subject, okay?” Taeil makes a vague noise of assent, but that’s clearly good enough for Yuta, because he marches on. “You’re holding a hell of a grudge right now, and it’s fine! But maybe think about how much of that grudge is yours and how much of it is actually Doyoung’s at some point.”

“Maybe.”

“And I’m sorry for bringing up the Sicheng thing yesterday,” Yuta concludes. _There it is_ , Taeil thinks to himself. That has to be what Yuta’s feeling guilty about.

Taeil places the ball of dough in his hands onto the cookie sheet gently. “Look at me, Yuta,” he demands. Yuta does, but he won’t meet Taeil’s eyes. “It was a long time ago, and Jungwoo saw me do something much worse. Yeah, I’d appreciate you not bringing it up again for a really long time,” he continues, laughing a little, “but I’m not mad about yesterday. Alright?”

“Alright,” Yuta agrees, eyes searching Taeil’s face. He must be satisfied with what he sees, because he nods firmly to himself and turns back to the cookies he had set aside a few minutes before. “So, you think eight dozen domino cookies are enough for now? Or should I make one more batch?”

“Should be fine for now, I think,” Taeil tells him, and allows himself to fall easily into the normal rhythm of an early morning in Crumbles’ kitchen with his best friend by his side.

 

***

 

“Hey, Taeil?” Jeno whispers. “Don’t look now, but I think an actual angel just walked in the door.”

Taeil looks up, of course. But it’s lunchtime and they have a line almost to the back of the shop in addition to nearly every table being occupied, so all he can see of the person who just walked in is his arm, and there’s nothing particularly angelic looking about it. But when the customer finally gets all the way up to the counter, Taeil sees just what Jeno had meant – the man is pretty much flawless. His white hair falls perfectly over his forehead, drawing all the attention to his features. His eyes are sharp, but friendly, and Taeil gets the impression the man doesn’t miss much of anything.

“Welcome to Crumbles, how can we help you with today?” Jeno says, sounding a bit higher pitched than normal. “I mean, how can we help you today?” he amends, and Taeil has to bite his lip from laughing at the poor kid.

The man smiles gently at Jeno. “Ah, actually, I was wondering if your boss was around? Taeil?”

“That’s me,” Taeil says, trying hard to not sound as suspicious as he suddenly feels as he wipes his hands on his apron. “How can I help you?”

“Do you have a moment to talk in private? I know you’re kind of busy right now,” the man continues, glancing around the shop. “Sorry, I didn’t really realize it was the middle of your lunchtime rush.”

Taeil exchanges a brief look with Jeno, who shrugs at him. There’s no customers in line behind the man, and the customers sitting at the tables all look content at the moment. There’s nothing he can plausibly use as an excuse right now to avoid this conversation.

Taeil suppresses a sigh. “Sure,” he says, moving to the other side of the counter. He stops just far enough away that he can have a private conversation with the man, but not so far that he can’t jump back behind the counter quickly if Jeno needs him.

The man holds out a hand expectantly. “Hi, I’m Taeyong. I’ll be working for Johnny once he gets his bakery open,” he says pleasantly as Taeil accepts the offered hand reluctantly.

“Listen,” Taeil says, “I really don’t want to get into all of this again. Surely you can understand that, right?” he asks, because the man standing in front of him seems like a reasonable person. He just has those vibes or whatever.

Taeyong nods quickly. “No, I do understand. And I’m not here to like, start everything up again. I swear. Can I just have like, five minutes of your time? And I’ll make a purchase when I’m done and everything.”

Taeil glances over at Jeno, who makes eye contact with him and nods encouragingly. Apparently they’re not so far away that Jeno can’t hear everything they’re saying, but honestly? It’s not that big of a deal, because Taeil knows damn well that he’s going to have to recount this conversation multiple times anyways. Jeno being able to eavesdrop will save him a retelling or two.  “Fine,” Taeil allows. “I’ll give you five minutes.”

Taeyong rocks back on his heels. “Awesome. Okay, I need to start off by saying that Johnny screwed up. Big time. Your store wasn’t the only one he scouted out before signing the contract to take over his new storefront, but you are the only person he wasn’t up front about it with. You did the same before opening up here, right?”

“Right,” Taeil admits begrudgingly.

“Johnny did intend to tell you,” Taeyong insists. “But he wasn’t expecting, well, _you_ , so it slipped his mind. And then you came over with your partner to introduce yourselves to us before he could figure out how to tell you, and so he was caught off guard, and then of course Ten stuck his nose in things.”

“He wasn’t expecting me? What the hell does that mean?” Taeil demands.

Taeyong completely ignores him. “I’m here to apologize for Johnny and for our business as a whole. We never meant to make you feel threatened, and I know that Johnny didn’t mean to make you feel like he used you for information. I can also promise you that Johnny has no plans to start making cupcakes with a mountain of icing and selling them either,” he adds, his eyes twinkling. “Just give us a chance, please? You’ll see.”

Taeil feels his resolve crumbling. Everything Taeyong’s saying is making perfect sense, and he hates it a little. “Are you apologizing for Ten, too?”

Taeyong laughs out loud at that, and Taeil sees Jeno’s jaw drop out of the corner of his eyes. “Oh, hell no. Ten’s a grown man who knows exactly what he’s doing. Or what he did. Whatever. I just ask that you don’t kill him.”

“I can’t promise that one of my employees won’t,” Taeil warns.

“I’m just asking that _you_ don’t kill him. If your employee that he keeps antagonizing kills him that’s fine with me. He’ll probably deserve it,” Taeyong shrugs. “It was nice to meet you finally, Taeil. I’m gonna get back in line so I can buy some cookies –”

“There’s no need!” Jeno interrupts, shoving a box already tied with a ribbon to the edge of the counter. “I put a dozen of Yuta’s domino cookies in there for you, and they’re on me.”

Taeyong reaches over to lift the box off the counter and beams at Jeno. “Thank you. I really appreciate it.”

Jeno’s face turns a bright red immediately, and Taeil suddenly feels almost bad for the kid. He knows what it’s like to be so completely flustered by an attractive person you weren’t anticipating at all suddenly being in your presence, okay. “No problem!” Jeno replies quickly. “And uh, just in case you got the wrong idea, Taeil’s single. So is Yuta. Not that you’ve met him yet or anything, but I think Yuta would really hate it if you thought he was dating Taeil.”

“Noted,” Taeyong says, still beaming. If anything, his smile is even brighter than it was thirty seconds ago. It’s almost unnerving. “I have to get back to work, then. Thanks for both the cookies and the conversation, guys!” There’s a definite spring in his step as he leaves, and Taeil swears that the sunlight reflecting though the windows shifts to focus on him like a spotlight sent from the heavens above before the door closes behind him.

“Was that necessary?” Taeil asks mildly.

“Okay, listen, Yuta _would_ be mad if he knew a guy that looks like that thought he wasn’t single,” Jeno says defensively. And okay, fine, he’s totally right, but that doesn’t mean Taeil wants to admit it.

“Whatever,” he grumbles. “So I’m guessing you heard everything?”

Jeno nods cautiously.

“Do you have any idea what on earth he meant when he said that Johnny ‘wasn’t expecting me’ or whatever?”

Jeno’s eyes widen almost comically. “You can’t be serious, Taeil.”

Taeil frowns but doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know what to say, because he suddenly has the feeling he’s missing something glaringly obvious – or glaringly obvious to everyone but himself, anyways.

“Oh my god,” Jeno says, his shoulders shaking with what Taeil assumes is poorly concealed laughter. “I’m actually embarrassed to know you right now, wow. I can’t wait to tell Hyuck about this.”

At least that means that Donghyuck won’t pester Taeil for every single little detail about his and Taeyong’s conversation when he inevitably hears about it. As far as positives go, that’s a pretty damn good one.

“By the way, don’t think I didn’t notice that you just gave away a dozen cookies for free,” Taeil warns Jeno.

“You can take them out of my paycheck,” Jeno sighs happily. “It’s so worth it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spoiler alert: taeil doesn't take anything off jeno's next check lol
> 
> see you next wednesday! until then, come say hi on either [twitter](https://twitter.com/zeromiles5) or [cc](https://curiouscat.me/zeromiles5)!


	4. are we out of the woods yet?

“Did I get my days mixed up?” Renjun asks, leaning against the counter even though Taeil has told him at least a hundred times by now not to do that. Jaemin copies him, because of course he does. “It’s summer and I’m unemployed so I could have, you know? But I’m pretty sure it’s Wednesday.”

“It is,” Yuta tells him, eyeing Renjun and Jaemin warily. He’s probably waiting for Taeil to yell at them to get off the counter for the hundred and first time, but Taeil has much more important things to do. Such as finish filling out the emergency supply form he’s working on right now, their first lull of the day, because they’ve run out of brown sugar four days earlier than they were supposed to and their flour supplies are dangerously low. If Taeil can have this order submitted by three o’clock, his supplier will make an early morning delivery, but he’s racing against the clock now. It’s looking more and more like he might have to make a trip to one of the bulk grocery stores after they close Crumbles down for the day, though.

Whatever. He’ll just force Yuta to go with him.

“It’s as busy as a Friday in here, though,” Jaemin says, sounding confused.

“It has been all week,” Donghyuck chimes in, returning from the kitchen with two trays of freshly baked snickerdoodles in his hands. “And last week, too. It’s awesome, but my feet really hurt.”

Donghyuck’s right. Business has been steadily climbing upwards over the last month, but it’s really exploded over the last week and a half. Not to mention the amount of custom orders they’ve received for this weekend alone; Taeil’s already had to adjust the schedule to have everyone come in on Friday, because it’s looking like he and Jungwoo will be spending most of the day in the kitchen making and decorating sugar cookies. June is apparently a popular month for bridal showers. Who knew?

“Weird,” Renjun shrugs.

Yuta snorts and elbows Taeil none too gently in the side. “Yeah. Weird, huh?” he repeats innocently. “There’s definitely no reason for our increased business, right Taeil?”

Taeil is a lot of things, but he isn’t stupid. It’s not hard to see that their business has gone up ever since the cake shop across the street ( _Tiers of Joy_ , and even Jeno had given Taeil a significant look at that one, as if he and Johnny apparently sharing an affinity for food related puns made them soulmates or something) officially opened in the middle of May. Even if he had tried to intentionally overlook that fact due to the grudge against Johnny he was clinging too, it would be impossible to ignore the number of customers that have told them this week alone that one of the cake shop employees had encouraged them to give Crumbles a try.

“Fuck off,” Taeil hisses between his teeth. “I need to finish this. I have twenty minutes left to send it in unless you want to go to Costco with me tonight.”

Yuta lights up, which is the opposite of what Taeil expected. “Ooh, I’m down for that. We should definitely go,” he says, clapping excitedly.

“Uh, if getting old means getting excited about going to the grocery store, count me out,” Jaemin says sarcastically.

Yuta flicks Jaemin in the ear. “I’m almost out of vodka,” he tells Taeil, continuing as if Jaemin hadn’t said a word. “Oh, and toothpaste.”

Vodka and toothpaste. What a combination, Taeil thinks. But at least it means he won’t have to load fifty pounds of flour into his car alone later, so he refrains from making a snarky comment. Yuta probably knows what he’s thinking anyways.

 

***

 

“Look at this,” Doyoung says, practically shoving a piece of paper in Taeil’s face.

“I can’t see anything when it’s pretty much touching my nose,” Taeil answers, reaching up and snatching the paper out of Doyoung’s grasp. “What am I supposed to be looking at?

Doyoung rolls his eyes. “This is our estimated profit margins for the entire month of June, based on current trends,” he says, taking the paper back from Taeil and pointing to a number so large that Taeil thinks his eyes might fall right out of their sockets with how wide they just went. “This number is if only half of our increased traffic over the last few weeks keeps up,” Doyoung continues, pointing to a second number, “and this one is if we suddenly fall back to our old traffic patterns, which is doubtful but I calculated it anyways because I knew both you and Yuta would ask for it.”

“Are you sure you didn’t make a mistake?” Taeil asks faintly, looking over the sheet a second time.

“The only reason why I’m not offended is because I had to run the numbers twice to make sure I didn’t make a mistake,” Doyoung informs him mildly. “If this keeps up, you might have to hire an actual accountant.”

“I trust you, though,” Taeil says faintly. “Wow. Look at this. Did you factor in the increased costs of supplies?”

Doyoung nods. “Even your Costco receipts from the other day are calculated into that. Well, minus the case of vodka you guys bought for some reason, because I don’t think we make alcohol infused cookies here. I was probably even overcautious with the most optimistic number.”

“Wow,” Taeil repeats, tracing the number with his finger. “Obviously, I have to talk to Yuta about it too, but with these numbers I could afford to actually hire Jaemin and Renjun, at least for the summer, right?”

“Taeil,” Doyoung laughs a little disbelievingly, “you could hire them both permanently and give all of your hourly employees raises and still be making a bigger profit than you were at the beginning of the year.”

Taeil pauses. “Is that your way of asking for a raise?”

“Not yet, but if these trends continue through…hmm, let’s say September, then you’ll need to remember this conversation,” Doyoung says. “For now, though, make sure Yuta’s good with you hiring the rest of the kids, but I can’t see him minding.”

Doyoung’s not wrong, of course. Taeil shows Yuta the projected profits Doyoung had run later that night, once they’d closed up Crumbles for the day. It means they’ll get a late start on prepping cookie doughs that need to be refrigerated for the next morning, but it’s the best time to have the conversation since no one else is around.

“Are you sure Doyoung did the math correctly?” Yuta asks, his jaw dropping hilariously wide. “That’s…jesus, Taeil, that’s almost March and April’s profits combined, and even though I know those are our slowest months of the year we definitely did just fine.” 

“Doyoung said that he ran the numbers twice,” Taeil says, tapping the pen he’s holding against the counter rapidly. “And factored in increased supply costs, blah blah blah. I trust his numbers, even if I’m not sure I want to get my hopes up yet.”

Yuta gives Taeil an incredulous look at that. “Taeil, the custom orders you and Jungwoo have to get through tomorrow alone will earn us almost a thousand dollars in pure profit,” he points out.

“Oh,” Taeil says, “I meant to ask. Can we give Jungwoo a bonus at the end of the month for this? I know from experience tomorrow’s going to be hell on both of us.”

“We can probably give everyone a bonus at the end of the month. It’s not like they don’t deserve it,” Yuta says decisively. He’s not wrong; Donghyuck and Jeno had gone from studying non-stop for their final exams straight into working full time hours at Crumbles, and Taeil’s not sure where they get their energy from at this point. He’d also only been able to give everyone one day off this week, and it’ll probably be the same next week, too. “And…” Yuta trails off.

“And?” Taeil encourages him.

“It’s probably time to see if Jaemin and Renjun are serious about wanting to work for us.”

Taeil grins at that. “I know they are. Didn’t you hear Renjun basically drop a hint the other day? About how it’s summer and he’s unemployed? Come on, Yuta, that was him trying to drop a hint while making us think we came up with the idea all by ourselves. But I’m sure they’ll be around tomorrow, since Hyuck and Jen are on the schedule at the same time, so I’ll ask them then.”

“Good,” Yuta says, drumming his fingertips against the counter. He’s visibly hesitating, something else on his mind that he wants to bring up – and Taeil can honestly probably guess what it is.

“Out with it,” Taeil encourages him.

Yuta tears his gaze away from the projected profits page for the first time since Taeil had set it down in front of them a few minutes ago. “About the Johnny thing,” he says cautiously.

Yeah, Taeil knew this was coming. “What about it?” he asks evenly. He just wants to get this conversation over with, honestly.

“Have you accepted now that he’s not out to undermine us or Crumbles in general? If anything, I’m pretty sure we can thank him for this, if what Hyuck told me earlier about them encouraging their customers to check us out is for real,” Yuta says, tapping the sheet of paper on the counter in front of them. “Are you still holding a grudge?”

“I don’t think so, no,” Taeil says contemplatively. It’s hard to be one hundred percent sure because he hasn’t seen Johnny since the day he’d yelled at him and can’t guarantee how he’ll react to him the next time, but if he had to guess – and Yuta clearly wants him to – he’d say yes. “I’m not going to apologize to him or go out of my way to seek him out to be friendly towards him or anything,” Taeil warns Yuta, “but I don’t think I’ll want to rip his head off again the next time I see him around or whatever.”

Yuta grins wolfishly. “That’s all I can ask for, Taeilie,” he says, picking up the sheet with their projected profits off the counter and folding it back up. “But now that business is all taken care of, let’s get to work. I don’t want to be here all night.”

“Fuck no,” Taeil agrees immediately. “Let’s get this done.”

 

***

 

Taeil meant what he said about not wanting to seek Johnny out, but it turns out that he doesn’t have to. Johnny shows up all on his own the following Tuesday afternoon, right at the tail end of the lunch rush; if Taeil didn’t know any better, he’d swear that Johnny had been keeping an eye on Crumbles from his own store to see when they got less busy.

The thing about Johnny is that he’s impossible to miss, Taeil thinks. Jaemin looks up from his spot behind the register when Johnny walks in, and immediately smacks Taeil on the arm. Hard.

“What the hell was that for?” Taeil hisses, rubbing his arm and wincing.

“Is that him? The guy who owns Tiers of Joy?” Jaemin whispers excitedly.

Taeil rolls his eyes. “Jaemin, I need you to focus on learning to run the register instead of gossiping.”

Jaemin smirks. “So that’s a yes.”

Jesus Christ. Jaemin has only officially been an employee of Crumbles for four hours now, but Taeil already wants to strangle him.

“Be careful, kid,” Yuta warns Jaemin as Johnny steps up to the counter. He’s wearing a backwards snapback today and the tightest black t-shirt Taeil’s ever seen, and his mouth goes dry even as he wonders why in the hell Johnny’s wearing black when he owns a bakery. Taeil manages to get some sort of powdery substance on his clothes daily, and he knows that if he wore a black shirt to work, he’d probably end up dropping an entire bag of flour on the floor again.

“Hi,” Johnny says, kind of shyly, and smiles down at them. Jaemin seems to be stunned speechless, and Yuta’s giving Taeil an expectant look, so it looks like it’s up to Taeil to reply.

“Hi,” Taeil echoes, cringing internally. Smooth, Taeil, smooth, he thinks to himself. “What’s up?”

“Oh, you know. I was just in the neighborhood,” Johnny says casually, then makes a face. “Oh my god. That was bad, can we pretend I didn’t say that?”

Taeil shakes his head. “Nope, you can’t. You said it, so you have to own it now,” he replies, feeling a grin spread across his face. The bell on the front door chimes, letting Taeil know that more customers – actual customers, really, considering he doubts that Johnny’s come in to buy some cookies – have come in, but he pays them no mind.

Johnny sighs exaggeratedly. “If you insist,” he says, scowling at Taeil at return. His smile returns immediately after the scowl slips from his features, though, showing him that it was just…well. _Flirtatious_ is the word Taeil would use, but that might just be his optimistic side coming out of hibernation.

“Oh my god,” Taeil hears Jaemin whisper, followed by a hissing sound that he’s pretty sure is Yuta shushing him.

Taeil ignores him. “So, how’s business?” he asks pleasantly.

“Good,” Johnny says, nodding, “it’s good. Really good, really, now that I can really accept new orders, you know? How’s business for you?”

“Business over here is also really good,” Taeil answers. The bell on the front door chimes again, as if to put an emphasis on his statement.

Yuta clears his throat. “Taeilie,” he murmurs, tilting his head in the direction of the line building up behind Johnny now. “Let me take care of the line.” Taeil curses under his breath and steps to the side so Yuta can take his place at the counter, and he’s not surprised when Johnny mirrors his movement, looking slightly embarrassed. The older woman who’d been in line behind Johnny gives Taeil an encouraging smile before she turns her attention to the display case, and it makes Taeil feel like he’s missing something.

Johnny’s fidgeting with a bracelet on his left arm when Taeil turns his attention back to him. “Um,” he starts, then stops.

“Are you okay?” Taeil asks worriedly. Johnny’s visibly tense, and he’s having a hard time meeting Taeil’s eyes now that there’s no longer a counter between them; his eyes have been fixed on their shoes ever since Taeil came to a stop in front of him.

“Yeah,” Johnny says, dropping his arms down to his sides. “I wanted to ask you if you’re still upset with me? Taeyong convinced me I should give you some time to see that your business wouldn’t be hurt, and it’s been over a month now…” he trails off, shrugging.

“I’m not mad anymore,” Taeil replies gently.

That gets Johnny to look up, finally. “Have I been forgiven?” he asks hopefully.

“Yeah, Johnny,” Taeil says, laughing a little. “You’ve been forgiven. And I’m sorry for overreacting, too,” he adds, doing the exact thing he’d promised Yuta just days before he would never do.

Johnny smiles then, and it’s brighter than any summer day. “Have I been forgiven enough for you to consider going on a date with me?”

At the word _date_ , Taeil’s brain shuts the fuck down.

“Um,” Taeil manages. “A date? Really?”

Johnny’s face falls. “I guess that’s a no,” he says dully. “I’ll go, then.”

Taeil feels like he’s been rooted to the ground as he watches Johnny leave. He’s still reeling from the fact that Johnny actually _asked him out on a date_ , and his mind hasn’t quite caught up to the rest of the situation yet – that, you know, he never gave Johnny an answer and Johnny just left.

Johnny just left.

Oh, _fuck_.

“What in the hell was that, Taeil?” Yuta screeches.

Yuta’s shouting turns out to be what Taeil needs to come back to reality. “You’re making a scene, stop yelling,” he answers back, his voice rising with each word.

“You’ve made more scenes in here than I have lately!” Yuta says, still yelling. “And I bet the customers all agree with me that you’re being a dumbass!”

The older woman who Yuta had been helping nods and gives Taeil one of the iciest glares he’s ever seen. “If you wanted to reject him, you should have done so properly,” she admonishes him.

“I wasn’t trying to reject him! I was just caught off guard!” Taeil protests. The woman’s glare gets even icier, somehow, and Taeil feels just as ashamed as he did as a kid whenever his grandma would have to scold him.

“Then what are you still doing here? Go after him!” Jaemin interjects, sounding a little dreamy of all things.

As much as Taeil doesn’t want to admit it, Jaemin’s right. “I’ll be back soon,” he says, already striding purposefully towards the door.

“This is like the day Jen and Hyuck got together all over again,” Taeil hears Yuta saying as the door to Crumbles slams closed behind him.

 

***

 

Tiers of Joy is nearly deserted when Taeil bursts through, save a man sitting at a table near the front window with a large binder spread open in front of him and the two teenagers giving each other worried looks behind the counter. Taeil’s sudden appearance causes all three look at him, and he recognizes one of the teenagers as the kid who had been spilled the beans about Tiers of Joy being a bakery six weeks ago now.

“I need to talk to Johnny,” Taeil says, only a little winded. He’d run across the street without waiting for the light to change, nearly getting hit by a car in the process, but both he and the car had managed to stop in time to avoid a collision so no harm done, really.

“Uh, no. Not a chance,” says the teenager Taeil doesn’t recognize, his eyes going wide behind his glasses. “Go away.”

“Aw, Mark, give him a chance,” the other teenager says loudly. Taeil’s starting to think that _loud_ is this kid’s default setting.

“No,” Mark says, crossing his arms. It reminds Taeil of a petulant child, honestly. “He hurt Johnny’s feelings.”

Taeil sighs. “I didn’t mean to. That’s why I want to talk to him, guys.”

“No,” Mark says for a third time, but he sounds less sure of himself than he had before.

“Johnny!” the other teenager shouts. “Come here! It’s an emergency!”

“Yukhei!” Mark gasps, sounding scandalized. “Johnny, ignore him!”

Mark’s shout is little too late, because Johnny pops out of the kitchen maybe a literal second later. “Is everything okay? Did Mark break the register again?” he demands, looking a little wild around the eyes.

“That wasn’t even my fault,” Mark whines, “but no. There’s no emergency, Johnny, I told you to ignore him.”

“Taeil’s here,” Yukhei interjects, and Johnny’s head turns in Taeil’s direction so fast that Taeil’s a little afraid that he might have just given himself whiplash or something. Johnny looks hopeful for a split second before his face settles into a mask of indifference, and it’s kind of surprising how much it hurts.

“Can I talk to you? Please?” Taeil pleads.

Johnny’s expression wavers. “Fine,” he relents finally. “But not here.”

It’s the guilt he feels for freezing up on Johnny in Crumbles eating at him, Taeil knows, but he goes on the defensive anyways. “So we can have multiple intensely personal conversations that really should have had in private in the middle of my shop, and not yours?” he questions.

“I can still kick him out, Johnny,” Mark says. Yukhei snorts, and Taeil kind of has to agree with him; there’s not a chance Mark could physically remove him from the premises. None.

Johnny winces. “Please, Taeil, just follow me? I’ll explain.”

If the guilt is what had made Taeil get defensive a moment ago, then the guilt is also what drives him to silently follow Johnny through the kitchen and out the back door. The area behind Tiers of Joy reminds Taeil of the setup behind Crumbles; a small employee parking lot, with a dumpster on the very edge of the lot. The main difference is that the side door of this dumpster is open, while Taeil’s had a standing rule that the dumpster that Crumbles uses is to be closed at all times, ever since the day that he and Yuta had found Sora inside of it nearly two years ago.

“Taeil,” Johnny starts.

“You should keep your dumpster closed,” Taeil blurts out, thinking of how close they’d come to throwing an entire day’s worth of trash on top of Sora’s tiny figure before Yuta had spotted her at the very last second. “Animals can get in there and it’s dangerous for them,” he adds, a little sheepishly, when Johnny gives him an odd look. “We pulled a kitten out of ours once.”

Johnny’s eyes widen. “I never even thought of that, fuck. That’s a good idea, we’ll start keeping it closed.”

“Thanks,” Taeil says. The silence that falls between them after is awkward; he doesn’t know if he should start by explaining why he’d reacted the way he had when Johnny asked him out on a date, or if he should let Johnny start by explaining why they _have_ to have their conversation out here.

Johnny makes the decision for him, though. “The only reason why I asked you if we could have this conversation out here instead of inside was because I have a consult scheduled to show up…well, probably about now, and if you came over here just to like, clearly reject me, I didn’t want my prospective clients to see me crying. But you’re right, it is really shitty that we keep having personal conversations like that right by the register in Crumbles. Especially today when I obviously knew there were quite a few customers around. But I was distracted because I’d almost forgotten how attractive you are, you know? And then you had icing sugar on your cheek too, and I was trying to keep myself from wiping it off for you.”

“Oh,” Taeil says eloquently, blinking rapidly. There’s a lot to unpack there, and he almost doesn’t know where to start. “If you have a consult, you should go back inside and take care of that. I can wait.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Johnny says easily. “I generally let Jaehyun deal with the initial consults anyways because no one knows how to say no to him. I think it’s the dimples.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” Taeil replies. “But do I really have icing sugar on my face?”

Johnny nods.

“Jesus Christ,” Taeil grumbles, swiping at both cheeks with his knuckles. His left hand comes away powdery, and he scowls down at it. “I can’t believe no one told me.”

“It was cute, don’t worry,” Johnny says, and Taeil’s face heats up. “Although I probably shouldn’t have said that if my worst fears are true and you came over here to shoot me down in detail.”

“No!” Taeil shouts quickly, waving his hands in the air. “No no no, I didn’t come here to do that at all. More like the opposite?” he says, his voice going so high at the end of the sentence that it sounds like a question rather than the emphatic statement he intended it to be.

“Really?” Johnny asks hopefully.

“Yes,” Taeil says firmly. “I froze up. I do that sometimes when I’m caught off guard, and you really _really_ caught me off guard earlier. But I do want to go on a date with you.”

Johnny gives him a disbelieving look. “You seriously do want to go out on a date with me?”

“Um, yeah?” Taeil asks bemusedly. “You literally asked me out and now you’re surprised that I’m saying yes? “

Johnny _pouts_ , and it is not endearing, nope. “It kinda slipped out,” he admits. “I was going to try to be your friend first.”

Taeil snorts. “If I’m being honest with you, I don’t think that would have worked.”

Johnny’s shoulders sag a little. “I still was going to try,” he says stubbornly, glancing at his watch. “Listen. I should probably go back in, in case Jaehyun needs me for this consult. But I’ll call you, yeah? To set up our _date_?” he adds gleefully, wiggling his eyebrows, and Taeil’s honest to god tempted to call off the date right then and there.

He doesn’t, though, because he’s not going to end this before it even has a chance to start. “Okay,” he agrees. “We’ll talk later.”

But _later_ turns out to be an hour later, when Johnny bursts through Crumbles’ door looking panicked. “Taeil,” he says, sounding just as panicked as he looks. Maybe more.

“What? What’s wrong? Is there a fire?” Taeil asks immediately.

Jaemin gives him an unimpressed look. “A fire, Taeil? Really?”

“It was where my mind went! You work in a kitchen long enough, that’ll be your first guess about an emergency,” Taeil says defensively. “You’ll see.”

Johnny shakes his head. “No, there’s no fire or anything like that. But um, I realized I can’t call you? Or text you? You never gave me your number,” he says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.

“That’s not an emergency,” Taeil says, unimpressed.

“I never said it was. You reached that conclusion all on your own,” Johnny points out.

Taeil scowls, hating both that Johnny’s right and that Jaemin is witnessing this – at least Jaemin hasn’t been added to the Crumbles groupchat yet, which means he can’t tell everyone about this immediately, but Taeil still has no doubt that Donghyuck at least will know about this as soon as Jaemin can get to his phone. “Give me your phone,” Taeil sighs.

“You do know that you could have looked up Crumbles’ number on the internet and called instead of running over here and freaking Taeil out, right?” Jaemin asks Johnny nonchalantly. “That’s embarrassing, dude.”

“Leave him alone, Jaemin,” Taeil says as he passes Johnny his phone back. “It’s kind of sweet,” he adds, and he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it when Johnny’s face flushes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyone else have an afternoon final exam on the day NCT will be in the city closest to them, making it impossible for them to attend because that city is four hours away?? just me?? *cries*
> 
> anyways, thank you once again for reading this little fic of mine! it makes me so happy to know that people are enjoying this. come say hi on [twitter](https://twitter.com/zeromiles5) or [cc](https://curiouscat.me/zeromiles5) if you'd like, and see y'all next week!


	5. might sink and drown and die

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just a quick heads up -- i can't guarantee that chapter six will be posted next wednesday, as it is only about half written currently and i will be very busy between now and then. right now i would say it's about a 50/50 chance, but if it's not ready to go next wednesday i will post it as soon as it's done!
> 
> now on with this week's chapter...

“I heard about what happened yesterday and I just want you to know that I kind of hate you right now,” Donghyuck says, leaning against the doorframe of the back office. Jeno, standing behind him, rolls his eyes.

Taeil presses his hand to his forehead and sighs. “Hyuck, you literally offered Jaemin your shift yesterday to get his training started. It wasn’t like I called Johnny up and told him to come by the shop yesterday. You do not get to blame me for this.”

“But I’ve missed all of the drama around here lately! It’s like everyone’s been on their best behavior up until the second I leave or have a day off,” Donghyuck whines. “It’s no fun, Taeil, you know I live for that sort of thing!”

“I think we should be more concerned that even Taeil’s forgotten how to be professional lately, honestly. That’s scaring me a little,” Jeno adds. “What’s next? Is he going to let Doyoung fight that dude the next time he comes by?”

Taeil gives Jeno an icy glare. “Excuse you,” he says, pointing a finger in Jeno’s direction that he hopes comes off as at least a _little_ menacing. “You’re still not allowed to lecture anyone about being professional, Jen. You literally confessed your undying love to Donghyuck on one of the busiest days of the year last year so loudly that the entire store heard you and someone live tweeted the entire thing! Jungwoo’s literally the only person who hasn’t caused a major scene in here yet,” Taeil adds, even though he personally thinks that one’s only a matter of time. Technically, he supposes, Jaemin and Renjun haven’t either, but they haven’t worked at Crumbles long enough yet to count.

“You forgot the part where we ended up on Buzzfeed and got Crumbles an insane amount of publicity,” Donghyuck says happily. “I still get tweets from random people asking if me and Jeno are still together. You really should capitalize on that and put us on social media already, Taeil.”

“Maybe. Or maybe not.” In all honestly, he’s planning on asking Jaemin and Donghyuck to set up Instagram and twitter accounts for Crumbles when Jaemin and Renjun are done with their training, but that’s something Donghyuck doesn’t need to know about right now.

Donghyuck rolls his eyes. “Whatever, keep being lame,” he says. “When’s your date?”

“I don’t know yet.”

It’s true. Johnny had texted him the night before like he’d said he would, and they’d talked a little bit just to try to get to know each other a little bit – Taeil had learned that Johnny’s a year younger than him and originally from Chicago, and that he and Ten have been best friends ever since they were kids, but that’s pretty much it. The date that Johnny had asked him out on had never been mentioned, and Taeil’s not sure if he should be the one to bring it up or what. It’s been more than a year since the last time he set up a date with someone, and considering he’d met that guy on a dating app he’s pretty sure the protocols are different. He might ask Yuta, though, just to be sure.

“Boring,” Donghyuck sighs. “God, are all adults as boring as you and Yuta? Getting excited about going to the grocery store last week and just making small talk with the hot guy who asked you out now?”

It’s Taeil’s turn to roll his eyes now. “I’m not boring, I’m responsible, Hyuck.”

“Sounds like the same thing to me,” Donghyuck stage whispers to Jeno, who snorts.

“Don’t worry, babe, we’ll never be as boring as them,” Jeno tells Donghyuck affectionately, and Taeil nearly gags. That’s a pretty rich statement coming from the person who’s openly talked about how he can’t wait to be married to Donghyuck so they can adopt half a dozen cats, after all.

“Please leave me alone, I do have actually have work to do. As do you two, no?” Taeil asks shrewdly.

Donghyuck’s face remains impassive, but Jeno at least looks a little guilty. “We did leave Jungwoo all alone,” he tells Donghyuck. “And we’re almost out of those jam cookies.”

“See?” Taeil asks them. “You both have stuff to do. Go away.”

“I can’t believe our boss is so mean,” Donghyuck says, but he allows Jeno to tug him away from the doorframe. They even close the door behind themselves, leaving Taeil alone with nothing but thoughts and the stack of invoices he’s trying to get sorted.

If he checks his phone every five minutes to see if Johnny’s texted him again, even though he knows Johnny is probably just as busy as Taeil himself is, that’s no one’s business but his own.

 

***

 

**Johnny**

Are you busy Monday night?

 

Taeil’s initial burst of excitement is crushed almost as quickly as it had arrived after he reads Johnny’s text. “Oh no, no,” he moans. “No, why?”

Doyoung makes a worried noise. “You okay over there, Taeil?” he asks, setting down the stack of bills he’d been counting down to prepare tomorrow’s bank deposit.

Taeil looks down at his feet, not wanting to meet Doyoung’s eyes. “Oh, it’s nothing,” he says halfheartedly. “Go back to what you were doing.”

“Taeil,” Doyoung says firmly. “I heard your phone go off, I know something happened. Did Johnny text you? What did he say? I know you said no murder, but if he’s being a dick to you, you know I can’t keep that promise.”

“It’s nothing like that,” Taeil says, looking up just in time to see Doyoung visibly relax. “It’s just. Uh. He asked if I was free Monday night, but I’m not because that’s the night that I’m supposed to start teaching Renjun and Jaemin some of our more basic recipes. I was just disappointed, that’s all,” he concludes sheepishly.

“You were being overdramatic again,” Doyoung concludes, turning his attention back to the bills laid out in front of him. “Okay. So you’re…just going to accept that you’re busy Monday night and turn him down? Really?”

Taeil makes a sound that he would absolutely deny is a whine if Doyoung were to call him on it, but probably is one. “I mean, yeah? I can’t ask Yuta to take over for me, he’s busy Monday night and I really don’t want to tell the kids oh hey, never mind, looks like you have to wait another week or two to be done with training because I decided to go on a date instead!”

Doyoung rolls his eyes. “Are those your only two options, though?”

“I guess so, because I’m not going to ask Jungwoo to train a bunch of kids only a little bit younger than he himself is. Could you imagine the chaos that would bring? I’m not sure Crumbles would be left standing and then I’d be unemployed and homeless.”

“I would ask if you’re really this stupid, but your nonsensical rambling is telling me that you’re just stalling,” Doyoung sighs. “We’ve known each other for how long, Taeil? Why are you afraid to ask me to do you one little favor?”

“Well, first of all, it’s not a little favor,” Taeil says, shifting his phone from hand to hand. “I’d be asking you to take over something that’s definitely mine or Yuta’s responsibility in order for me to go on a date. And second of all, it’s a date with Johnny. I know I was holding the worst grudge against him, but you were right there with me. I kind of thought you might be mad at me,” he admits.

Doyoung sets the pile of bills down again. “Taeil. No,” he says firmly. “I’d be mad at you if you decided to go on a date with that spawn of Satan who calls himself Johnny’s friend, but not Johnny himself. Well, not mad, you’re an adult who can do whatever he wants to do, but I’d wonder if you’d lost all of your senses,” he amends. “Besides, I think we all knew it was only a matter of time.”

“So you’d really be okay with coming in Monday to close the shop and spend a couple hours in the kitchen with Renjun and Jaemin?” Taeil asks hopefully.

“Yes, Taeil, I’d be okay with it,” Doyoung confirms. “Also, you know damn well all four kids will be there.”

“Don’t let Jeno near the ovens,” Taeil says worriedly as he unlocks his phone to text Johnny back. “You know what happened last time –”

“Chill,” Doyoung says, rolling his eyes at Taeil a second time. “I know. Everything will be just fine, okay? Now text Johnny back and tell him you’re free Monday.”

“Yes, mom,” Taeil mutters.

**Taeil**

My Monday evening just opened up... ;)

 

**Johnny**

Perfect.

 

***

 

Johnny shows up on Monday evening in a three piece suit, and Taeil nearly backs out of the date right then and there.

“Am I underdressed?” Taeil demands, gesturing towards his outfit. He thinks he looks pretty nice – he’s wearing his nicest pair of jeans and a dark blue button down that someone (his bet is on Donghyuck) had broken into his apartment to pick out for him – but compared to Johnny? No.

Taeil doesn’t miss Johnny’s slight wince, either. “You look great,” Johnny says, obviously attempting to reassure him, but it falls flat. “Traffic’s pretty bad tonight, though, so we have to leave now if we want to make our reservation.”

“Reservation?” Taeil echoes, following Johnny down the steps to his car. He’s grateful that he at least had the sense of mind to meet Johnny outside of the shop, rather than having Johnny come inside, because all four kids are there right now helping Doyoung close the shop, and he knows that there’s no way that Hyuck and Jaemin, at least, would have let them go so easily. Especially not with Johnny wearing what he is.

“Well, yeah,” Johnny says, holding the passenger side door open. “It was short notice, but I pulled a couple strings, got a client to cash in a favor they owed me, and it all worked out.”

“Oh,” Taeil says weakly. That sounds a little foreboding, if he’s being honest, but he pushes it to the back of his mind. He’s worked too hard to tone down his pessimistic tendencies to let them come back just because Johnny’s dressed really, _really_ nicely. Good enough to eat, if Taeil’s being honest, but like. He also looks kind of intimidating, like a mob boss or something, and his mind can’t seem to decide if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.

It’s when they pull up at the restaurant after a mostly silent car ride that Jungwoo’s words about Johnny’s clientele being on the wealthier side hits Taeil like a ton of bricks.

“Uh, Johnny?” Taeil asks, laughing awkwardly. “Are you sure we’re at the right place?”

Johnny smiles widely. “Of course we are,” he says cheerfully. “I really want to make this a night you’ll never forget, you know? We got off on the wrong foot and it was all my fault, and I want to make it up to you.”

The sentiment is so sweet that Taeil relaxes, just a little. That is, until the hostess or whatever fancy name they’re given at a restaurant as expensive as this one gives him a blatant once over before turning her nose up at him.

“We have a dress code here, sir,” she informs him coldly.

“I figured,” Taeil snaps back before he can stop himself.

Johnny chuckles, although Taeil’s not sure if it’s because he genuinely finds Taeil’s comment funny or if he’s just trying to break the tension bubbling up between Taeil and the hostess. “We have a reservation,” he tells her smoothly. “Under Seo.”

The girl sighs and taps the tablet in front of her disdainfully, then freezes. “Oh,” she says, turning red. “I see that, yeah. Um, your table is ready for you, if you’ll just follow me?” she says quickly, her voice going to high at the end that Taeil’s suddenly embarrassed for _her_ , even if he’s not sure why.

“Johnny, why did she react like that?” Taeil hisses to Johnny as she leads them to their table, the rapid clicking of her heels echoing through the room. Seriously, she’s moving so fast that Taeil almost can’t keep up with her without breaking into a jog or something.

“Thank you,” Johnny tells her politely as she comes to a stop in front of a table near the front windows. He insists on pulling Taeil’s chair out for him much like he’d opened the door of his car, but he’s not answering Taeil’s question and they both know it.

“Johnny,” Taeil repeats.

Johnny sighs a little and props his chin on his hand. “She could probably see that the owner of this place made the reservation for me,” he admits.

Taeil feels like his eyes are going to bug right out of his head. “The owner?” he says weakly.

“Mmm,” Johnny nods. “Yeah. Kun and I made a cake for his sister’s wedding for five hundred people with a week’s notice about six months ago after their original baker backed out almost at the last minute. It was one of the things that made me realize I needed a professional kitchen, actually, it took us twice as long as it should have because we didn’t have much space. But he promised both of us that he could get us in here any time we wanted, no questions asked, as long as we let him know the day before,” he shrugs, like it’s no big deal.

“Oh,” Taeil says, slumping in his chair a little as a waiter approaches their table, only to sit up straight when the waiter gives him a clearly disapproving look.

“Wine, sirs?” the waiter asks Johnny, turning his back to Taeil.

“No, that’s okay,” Taeil tries, but Johnny’s “Yes, of course, what do you recommend?” drowns him out. The waiter leaves after a short conversation with Johnny where they seem to agree on some imported red wine Taeil knows he wouldn’t be able to pronounce even if he tried.

“I hope you don’t mind,” Johnny says sheepishly when the waiter’s out of earshot. “I don’t know a ton about wine, but if they recommend it, it can’t be that bad, right?”

Taeil doesn’t know much about wine either. He doesn’t drink that often – probably why he’s still the same lightweight now as he was when he was starting college – but when he does, he tends to go straight for shots or mixed drinks. The only wines he ever really drinks are the pink ones Yuta buys cheap at the grocery store whenever he convinces Taeil that they should have a best friend movie night, because they’re so sweet it’s pretty much like drinking juice. He figures Johnny doesn’t want to hear about that, though. “It’s fine,” he says instead.

Johnny beams. “Alright. Awesome. I hope it’s good.”

It’s not good, at least to Taeil. Johnny makes the proper impressed noises when the waiter returns with a full bottle and pours them each a glass, but it tastes like grapes and dirt to Taeil and he can’t keep himself from grimacing when the first sip hits his tongue. The waiter takes their orders afterwards and disappears again, leaving the nearly full bottle on the table for them to help themselves, Taeil supposes. As if he’s even going to finish his first glass.

“Have you ever been here before?” Taeil asks Johnny, attempting to keep them from falling into an awkward silence.

“No,” Johnny answers. “Just heard good things, you know?”

“Well, yeah, same,” Taeil agrees, and the silence he’d been so afraid of falls over them anyways. It’s excruciating, but Taeil doesn’t know what to say. He feels awkward and out of place sitting across from Johnny in his three piece suit in a room full of people similarly dressed, and try as he might he can’t think of a topic of conversation that’s suitable. The normal first date conversations about work are pretty much a no-go, he thinks, considering both the drama that’s happened between them and the fact that any stories Taeil tells about Crumbles tend to devolve into the side of _ridiculous_ pretty quickly. As funny as they may be, there’s a time and place and this isn’t it.

And since Taeil’s not a mind reader, he doesn’t know what Johnny’s thinking about right now. Is he feeling as awkward as Taeil is? Is he perfectly at home in this setting and having second thoughts about bringing Taeil here? Is he just being quiet because he’s got something on his mind that he doesn’t want to talk about? Taeil doesn’t know, and it’s driving him crazy.

“So,” Taeil tries, desperate to say something, _anything_. “Um. Do you have any weddings to make a cake for this weekend?”

“One tomorrow night and one on Saturday, yeah,” Johnny nods. “What about you?”

Taeil’s not sure he heard him right. “Are you asking if I have any weddings to make a cake for this weekend too?”

“No,” Johnny says, shaking his head a little. “Well. No, but I meant do you have any like big orders yourself for this weekend? I know you guys do that kind of thing.”

“Yeah, we have an order for a baby shower to finish tomorrow, but I think Jungwoo can handle that one on his own. It’s not that big.”

“Have I met Jungwoo?” Johnny asks interestedly.

Taeil frowns as he tries to remember who’s all been in the shop during the times Johnny’s stopped by. “I don’t think so,” he settles on. “He was in the kitchen the day that I yelled at you but that’s it.”

Johnny’s face shutters immediately, and Taeil mentally kicks himself for bringing that up. He’d wanted to avoid bringing up his past behavior, but he’d done just that. Johnny looks like he doesn’t know what to say in response, but what is there to say?

Nothing, that’s what.

Not even their food arriving makes it less awkward. If anything, it’s almost worse – Taeil’s just a little grateful that Johnny had been the one to blurt out _this is it?_ when their entrees had been set down in front of them. Not that that hadn’t been Taeil’s exact thought or anything, but at least he had managed to keep his surprise hidden.

“Problem, sir?” their waiter asks, the distain in his voice so clear that Taeil wants to crawl under the table and hide even though it’s not directed at him.

“Nope, none!” Johnny says quickly. He scoots his chair closer to the table, clearly trying to make a big show out of how much he’s about to enjoy his meal or something, but one of his knees bumps against the underside of the table with enough force that the impact knocks the untouched bottle of wine onto its side and rolling to the ground. The bottle somehow doesn’t break when it hits the ground, but that just means that there’s no shards of glass hidden in the giant puddle that quickly forms at their feet.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry,” Johnny says, springing to his feet.

“Johnny, sit down, you’re going to make it worse,” Taeil tells him, drawing his feet up off the ground to balance them on one of the rungs of the chair. Johnny glances at the waiter, who nods sharply in agreement, before doing just that. His face is as red as a tomato, and it’s kind of cute. Or, well, would be kind of cute if Taeil didn’t kind of want to die from second hand embarrassment right now. And okay, this isn’t the worst first date Taeil’s ever been on – that title will always belong to the one and only blind date he’d ever agreed to – but it’s definitely the worst first date he’s ever been on that hasn’t involved criminal activities.

The spilled wine gets cleaned up quickly and efficiently, one of the benefits of being at such a nice restaurant, but Johnny refuses to look up from his plate afterwards.

“Johnny, it’s okay,” Taeil says gently.

Johnny shakes his head. “I’m so embarrassed,” he moans. “I can never show my face here ever again.”

Taeil snorts loudly enough at that that people from at least three other tables look their way. “I don’t know if that’s a big loss,” he admits, glancing down at their plates. Spending five bucks at one of the street vendors near their respective bakeries probably gets you more food than what’s in front of them right now.

Johnny looks up just to give Taeil a withering look. “This is one of the best restaurants in the entire city. You usually have to make a reservation at least three months in advance, and I’m pretty sure they’re already booked out for Valentine’s Day next year.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not overpriced for what you get,” Taeil shrugs, pushing a piece of broccoli to the side of his plate with his fork.

Johnny opens his mouth to reply, but whatever he was going to say is interrupted by Taeil’s phone ringing loudly. It’s the loud, obnoxious ringtone guaranteed to wake him up even from the deepest of sleeps that he’d set for Crumbles’ security company years ago, so if they’re calling it can’t mean anything good.

“I have to take this,” Taeil says hurriedly, shoving his chair back from the table. “I’ll be right back.” He rushes to the bathroom rather than the door, figuring that a restaurant as expensive as this one might frown upon customers leaving the building before their check has been paid. The bathroom is deserted when Taeil accepts the call, thankfully, so there’s no one around to hear his strangled yelp when the calm, almost detached voice on the other line informs him that the fire alarms in Crumbles’ kitchen had gone off due to their sensors detecting high levels of smoke, but not to worry because the fire department was on their way.

“I’m sure we don’t need the fire department,” Taeil tries telling them, trying to keep the panic from taking over.

“It’s policy, sir,” the person on the other line informs him. “They’ve likely already arrived on the premises since we had to call you twice before you picked up.”

Right, because he’d set his phone on do not disturb on the way to the restaurant. In hindsight, that had been a terrible decision, but how was Taeil supposed to know that someone would start a fire in the kitchen of the bakery when he was out of reach for two hours? Taeil wonders as he walks back over to his and Johnny’s table. He’s a little hurt that Johnny looks a little surprised to see him, but he doesn’t have time to dwell on that right now.

“We have to go. I’ve got a situation I have to go deal with,” Taeil says, not bothering to sit back down.

“An emergency, right?” Johnny asks. “Of course,” he says knowingly when Taeil nods. “Of course it is.”

Taeil frowns. “Johnny, I’m not making a damn excuse here. That was my security company who just called me. There are literally fire trucks at my store right now.”

“Oh, fuck,” Johnny says, his eyes widening in alarm. “Okay. Uh, do you want to call an Uber? Or I can drive you back over as soon as we get this check cleared?”

“If you’re willing to drive me back, that would probably be quicker than an Uber,” Taeil says gratefully. “Thanks.”

“Of course,” Johnny says, sounding a little wistful. “Let’s go.”

 

***

 

Two fire engines are leaving Crumbles when Johnny pulls into one of the parking spaces in front of Tiers of Joy half an hour later, and the building’s still standing, so the rational side of Taeil’s brain reasons that it can’t be _that_ bad. The irrational side of his brain has him sprinting across the street with Johnny hot on his heels anyways. If Johnny notices that Taeil’s hands are shaking when he opens the front door, he doesn’t mention it. The shopfront itself is undisturbed, save for some powdery footprints tracked to and from the kitchen that must be from the firefighters, but the kitchen –

“Oh, no,” Taeil whispers. The kitchen is all but covered in a fine white powder, as are its five occupants. Jeno’s hair is nearly white, so much so that Taeil suspects he was in the direct blast of the fire extinguisher – or extinguishers, seeing as how there are two lying on their sides on the floor. The charred remains of something that was definitely some sort of cloth once upon a time is on the ground in front of the oven, and it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened here.

“Holy shit,” Johnny says from behind him. Taeil had nearly forgotten he was there as he surveyed the wreck that is Crumbles’ kitchen, but it’s Johnny’s voice that gets the attention of Doyoung and the four kids.

“Taeil!” Donghyuck yelps. “What are you doing here?”

“Our security company called me,” Taeil answers, noticing how Jeno is staring at the ground and refusing to look anyone in the eye. Not even Jaemin, who’s clinging to him like an overly affectionate koala, or Donghyuck, who’s standing behind him trying to brush some of the extinguisher powder out of Jeno’s hair. “What caught on fire?”

Doyoung groans. “A towel, which wouldn’t have been a big deal had it been thrown in the sink, but…” he trails off. Jeno makes a noise that sounds kind of like a puppy whimpering, and Taeil’s overcome with the urge to shove Jaemin off of him and wrap Jeno in a hug himself.

“What, did everyone panic and run for a fire extinguisher or something?” Johnny laughs.

“Pretty much, yep. How did you know? Is it that obvious?” Renjun asks.

Taeil sighs. “There are two extinguishers on the floor, Junnie.”

“I was actually just joking,” Johnny admits, and when Taeil turns around to look at him he has a sheepish look on his face.  “Sorry.”

“It’s alright,” Taeil says gently. “Listen, I probably need to stay to help them clean this up if we want to open the bakery tomorrow.”

Johnny visibly swallows. “Oh. Yeah, of course. Um, I can see myself out?”

“No, I’ll walk you out,” Taeil answers, placing a hand on Johnny’s elbow to steer him out of the kitchen. “Thank you for dinner,” he adds.

“You don’t have to say you enjoyed yourself,” Johnny tells him as they draw to a stop in front of the door. “It was kind of a disaster.”

Taeil winces. “It kinda was, yeah,” he agrees.

“Yeah. So, hey, listen, I’ll probably see you around Taeil,” Johnny says, and it sounds like more than just a simple _goodbye_. It sounds like he’s just come to a decision that he’s going to stick to, come hell or high water.

“Johnny,” Taeil tries, but Johnny shakes his head.

“I’m going to head out. I don’t want to waste any more of your time, especially not with your kitchen in the state that it’s in right now,” Johnny says quietly. “Bye, Taeil,” he finishes, opening the door and slipping out.

Taeil watches him cross the street back over to his own bakery, wishing not for the first time that things had turned out differently between the two of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me, this past week, reading the comments from last week's chapter: *nervous laughter* 
> 
> (did anyone catch last week's foreshadowing though??)
> 
> let me know what you thought/what you think might happen next!! or come say hi on [twitter](https://twitter.com/zeromiles5) or [cc](https://curiouscat.me/zeromiles5)! until next time!


	6. touch me (and you'll never be alone)

“Why are we having another employee meeting so soon? This sucks,” Jeno whines, slumping against Donghyuck. If Donghyuck moved, there’s no question that Jeno would tumble to the ground, but neither of them seem to care. Young love, Taeil thinks, only a little wistfully.

“Suck it up, buttercup,” Yuta tells him cheerfully. “This meeting is partially your doing.”

“We could at least be having this meeting upstairs again,” Jeno continues, pouting a little.

Taeil clears his throat. “First of all, I’m not sure my apartment is big enough to fit eight people in the living room at the same time, but more importantly a little birdie told me that you’ve been plotting to steal my cat again. So yeah, we’re having the meeting here in the bakery today.”

Jeno gives Renjun a scandalized look. “You’re a traitor,” he hisses.

Renjun shrugs unrepentantly. “I like this job. I don’t want to lose it by being a co-conspirator in your schemes,” he says haughtily. “If you have a problem with it, meet me outside.”

“No one is meeting anyone outside,” Yuta interrupts, although he sounds amused. Taeil has no doubt that if Jeno and Renjun did actually try to throw down, Yuta would make no real attempt to stop them.

“Can we get to it already?” Jungwoo asks, glancing down at his watch. “I have places to be.”

Taeil drums the pen he’s holding against the table. “Sure,” he agrees. “This is going to be a pretty quick meeting, guys, there’s just a few things I wanted to go over really fast. Can anyone guess the first thing?”

Jaemin raises his hand, even though this isn’t a school and Taeil isn’t their teacher. “Jeno’s banned from the kitchen again?”

“Jeno’s banned from the kitchen again,” Taeil confirms, grinning a little at the way Jeno whines and buries his head against Donghyuck’s neck. “Right, Doie?”

“Right,” Doyoung says begrudgingly. It’s been a week now, and Taeil’s still not sure how he thought it would be a good idea to try and teach Jeno how to be less of a walking fire hazard in the kitchen while simultaneously trying to teach two other people how to bake cookies with only Donghyuck as an assistant. Taeil hadn’t had the heart to really lecture him about it, though, figuring that the hours spent on cleanup followed by Yuta literally laughing in his face when he found out what had happened the next morning to be punishment enough. Besides, the only casualties had been two fire extinguishers, a kitchen towel, and a date that was already in the midst of its dying throes anyways. No big loss, really.

“The second thing we wanted to talk about was moving to fixed schedules, at least temporarily to see if they work out,” Yuta says, snatching the pen out of Taeil’s hand.

Taeil sighs. “Yuta, that was the third thing.”

“Oh, shit,” Yuta says, his eyes going wide. “I fucked up.”

“You idiot,” Doyoung says, reaching out to flick Yuta on the forehead.

“Yeah, I’m lost here,” Donghyuck says. “Care to elaborate?”

“The second thing we wanted to do was to ask Jungwoo if he’d be willing to start training as a manager so he could open and close the store on his own or with one of you guys sometimes,” Taeil tells Donghyuck.

A stunned expression forms on Jungwoo’s face. “Are you serious?” he asks disbelievingly. “I haven’t even been working here for a year yet.”

“Doesn’t matter. We think you’re ready for it, if you want it,” Yuta tells him seriously. “If you need time to think on it, though –”

“No, I’ll do it!” Jungwoo interrupts, his eyes turning suspiciously shiny. “You just caught me by surprise. Wow.”

Taeil smiles at him. “We’re really excited for this, Woo. Congratulations.”

The rest of the meeting is quick work after that – everyone agrees to try moving to a fixed schedule for a month to see what happens, which means that Taeil will now have Tuesdays and Wednesdays off starting next week, and everyone is fine with the current menu even if Jaemin thinks they should add a coffee machine or two and become a bakery slash café (which is ridiculous, considering that there’s a tea shop next door) – so Taeil thinks that’s that.

“Are we really going to keep on ignoring the elephant in the room?” Donghyuck demands.

Guess not.

Taeil gives him a quizzical look. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Hyuckie,” he says honestly.

Donghyuck huffs out an exasperated sounding breath. “When are you going on a second date with the cake man?”

“Really, Hyuck?” Renjun asks. “Cake man has a name. Come on now.”

“Mmm, you’re right, sorry Renjunnie,” Donghyuck says. “When are you going on a second date with _Johnny_ , Taeil?”

“I don’t think I am,” Taeil confesses. “Our first date was kind of a train wreck, and he hasn’t tried texting me since and it’s been like a week and a half now. So, yeah. No second date,” he concludes lamely.

It’s true that Johnny hasn’t texted him since he’d left Taeil with a wreck of a kitchen to clean up. More importantly, though, Johnny hasn’t texted him _back_ – Taeil’s reached out twice, once to tell Johnny that they managed to get the kitchen cleaned in time to open on the following day like nothing had ever happened, and once just to ask him how things were going, you know, like people who are friendly with one another do. The radio silence in return has been telling, and Taeil feels vaguely embarrassed about it even though he knows logically that he _shouldn’t_. Yuta’s the only one who knows that Taeil’s tried texting Johnny a couple times since their disastrous date, which is probably why he pats Taeil’s leg comfortingly.

Jaemin springs to his feet. “No!” he cries. “Your story doesn’t end with one bad date, Taeil! There’s no way. Haven’t you ever watched a romantic comedy? There’s always a couple of hiccups and misunderstandings before the main couple gets their happy ending, but you’re going to let your happy ending slip right out of your hands!”

Taeil’s jaw drops, and his isn’t the only one. Everyone seems to be stunned into silence by Jaemin’s outburst save for Renjun, who’s shaking his head and muttering to himself.

Doyoung recovers first. “You know life isn’t like the movies, right, Jaemin?” he asks kindly.

Jaemin gives Doyoung an incredulous look. “Not always, but it is sometimes,” he insists.

“Jaemin, stop,” Taeil says firmly. “I think it’s pretty clear that he doesn’t want to see me again, and it’s fine. I’m lucky that he even tried once considering how terrible I was to him at first. But all that’s in the past now, so I’m moving on.”

“But Taeil,” Jaemin protests.

“Nana, cut it out,” Renjun says, scowling. “Taeil’s a grown man who can make his own decisions.”

“Thank you,” Taeil says appreciatively.

“Even if they’re wrong,” Renjun adds, smirking at Taeil when makes an exasperated noise.

Jungwoo stands up. “As nice as this has been, I really need to go. I told someone I would meet them downtown at ten o’clock.”

Jeno glances down at his watch. “It’s like seven thirty, Woo.”

“And?” Jungwoo asks. “I’ve been here all day and I smell like cookies. I don’t want the guy I’m meeting up with to think about eating cookies when he sees me. I want him to think about eating m –”

“That’s enough,” Yuta interrupts quickly. “Oh my god, Jungwoo, you can go. But _please_ never say something like that ever again.”

“Coward,” Jungwoo sniffs, raising his arms above his head and stretching. “Bye. Please don’t call me in tomorrow unless like, Jeno sets the kitchen on fire again or that short guy comes back and he and Doyoung throw down.”

Taeil doesn’t miss how Donghyuck and Renjun exchange wary looks. “This meeting was literally mostly about how Jeno is banned from the kitchen again, I think we’re fine,” Donghyuck answers, petting Jeno’s hair fondly. “Have fun tonight!”

“Use a condom!” Jaemin adds.

Yuta groans and buries his head in his hands. “I need a drink,” he declares, and Taeil couldn’t agree more.

 

***

 

Although Crumbles opens every morning at 7:30 on the dot, it’s pretty rare for them to get customers before eight on weekdays, save for those picking up custom orders for a work or school event that day. So when the bell on the door chimes at 7:35 on a Tuesday morning, Taeil stops stocking their cookie boxes underneath the display case to exchange a concerned look with Doyoung.

“Did we have a custom order I forgot about or something?” Taeil asks worriedly. Since he’s crouched down behind the counter, he can’t see who just walked in, but he _does_ see the second that Doyoung’s posture goes rigid. “Wait, did we? Doie?” 

Doyoung slams his palms down on the counter so hard it shakes. “What are you doing here,” he snaps. The tinkling laugh he gets in return sends Taeil scrambling to his feet in a panic, as it can only mean nothing good.

Ten standing on the other side of the counter is less surprising than it maybe should be, all things considered. Standing next to him is one of the people Taeil and Yuta met the day they realized Tiers of Joy was a bakery, but there’s no way Taeil can remember his name right now. His relaxed, confident stance is in stark contrast to the way that Ten is practically thrumming with visible energy next to him.

“What’s going on?” Taeil asks warily.

“I’m here to do the best person I know a favor,” Ten shrugs. The man he’s with lets out one of the fakest coughs Taeil’s ever heard, and Ten sighs. “Fine, _one_ of the best people I know, Kun,” he amends. Kun gives Ten a pleased smile.

“Then get on with it,” Doyoung says. Well, snarls, more like. Taeil reaches out and grabs onto his arm as a precaution, just in case he decides he wants to jump right over the counter to strangle Ten or something.

Ten rolls his eyes. “I don’t want to now,” he says, shifting on his feet like he’s considering turning around and leaving.

“Ten,” Kun says. It sounds soft and encouraging at face value, but there’s an undercurrent of steel running through his words. Taeil thinks Doyoung hears it too, if the way that he blinks rapidly in confusion is any indication.

Ten stills instantly. “Fine,” he huffs. “Taeil, listen. I know you and Johnny had a really bad date, and he’s trying to ghost you, but you can’t let him do that. He’s super into you, and I’m tired of hearing about how the sun shines out of your ass and how you hung the moon – what’s so funny?” he adds, glaring when Doyoung snorts.

“My last name is Moon, so you kind of made a pun,” Taeil sighs. “Whatever. But if that’s the case, why hasn’t he answered any of my texts? It sucks to put yourself out there and get ignored like, you know?”

“Because he’s embarrassed!” Ten says exasperatedly. “Put yourself in his shoes. He tried so hard to impress you and instead pretty much everything that could go wrong went wrong. Or did you forget that he thought you were trying to ditch him? That should tell you how bad he thought it was. And I’ve seen the texts you’ve sent him since. None of them were like, _oh my god Johnny you’re so hot when can I see you again_ , so he probably thinks you’re just trying to be nice.”

Kun hums. “Johnny showed you his texts?”

Ten visibly hesitates. “Let’s not focus on that right now, Kunkun,” he says after a moment, overly bright. “Taeil. Are you listening to me?”

Taeil nods.

“Okay. So the ball is on your field or whatever that saying is, I don’t care for sports. Whatever. If you do actually like Johnny and are interested in going on another date with him, you need to tell him. Clearly. Don’t beat around the bush, he’ll convince himself you don’t mean it. And if you’re not, then don’t bother texting him again. Let him move on,” Ten says seriously.

“Does Johnny know you’re over here saying this to Taeil? Because if I were in his shoes, and my so called best friend went and said this to the person I was interested in, I would be _super_ pissed,” Doyoung says incredulously, while Taeil’s trying to process the bomb Ten just dropped on him.

“Of course Johnny doesn’t know, do you really think he would be okay with this?” Ten snaps.

Doyoung shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t know him. I just know I wouldn’t go behind Taeil’s back like this, or anyone’s.”

Taeil tightens his grip on Doyoung’s arm, but now it’s so that if _Ten_ decides to jump across the counter to get at him, Taeil can probably drag Doyoung down to the ground before Ten makes it over.

Kun chuckles lowly. “Oh, I like him,” he tells Ten, his voice sounding like a purr. “I see why he gets under your skin, too.”

Taeil watches as the tips of Doyoung’s ears turn red. “I don’t care if a stranger likes me or not,” he scoffs. 

“That’s a shame,” Kun says, shaking his head. He doesn’t sound disheartened, though. If anything, he sounds amused. “But anyways, now that Ten’s finished with what he came to do, we should leave. I have to clock in in fifteen minutes,” he adds, glancing down at his watch. “We have a lot of prep work to do today, because we have two cakes being picked up on Friday and three more on Saturday. None on Sunday, though,” he concludes firmly, staring at Taeil with an intensity that has him wanting to avert his gaze.

“I’ll think about what you said,” Taeil tells Ten, who looks dissatisfied, but whatever. They’re pretty much complete strangers, so it’s not like Taeil’s going to suddenly confide in him just because he’s trying to make his friend happy. Hell, he doesn’t even want to talk to Doyoung about it, and he’s known Doyoung for going on five fucking years now. “Thanks for coming by.” It’s a dismissal, the clearest one Taeil can give – if Kun has to clock in in fifteen minutes, that means it’s nearly eight o’clock and actual paying customers who will need his undivided attention are about to start arriving.

Luckily, Kun seems to get it. He waves, kind of dorkily, then places the same hand gently on Ten’s waist to guide him towards the door. Taeil looks away, intent on finishing stocking the boxes he’d put to the side a few minutes ago, but a quiet, strangled noise from Doyoung grabs his attention. He looks back up, and the pinched expression on Doyoung’s face is enough for Taeil to follow his line of vision, to try and figure out what’s causing him to react like that. He wasn’t expecting it to be that Kun’s hand has slipped from Ten’s waist to his ass as they walk out the door, but hey, he wasn’t expecting them to stop by either. Looks like this day’s full of all kinds of surprises.

“Do you wanna talk about it?” Taeil asks Doyoung.

“Do you?” Doyoung retorts.

“Nope,” Taeil answers, popping the last syllable.

“Me neither.”

 

***

 

The nice thing about living above Crumbles is that Taeil has a non-existent commute to work. There have been plenty of mornings over the years where he’s woken up like fifteen minutes before slipping downstairs to start the day. It’s one of the reasons why he often takes the opening shift, because of how easy it is for him to get to the kitchen; he doesn’t have to worry about traffic or weather or any of the myriad of things that could lead to showing up thirty minutes late despite your best intentions and setting the entire day back through no fault of your own.

Today, though, living above Crumbles means that Taeil can sit in the armchair in his living room with Sora curled up on his lap while he looks out the window, watching for Johnny to leave Tiers of Joy for the evening. He’s theoretically reading a book while he waits, but he’d set it to the side in anticipation once he’d seen the two teenagers leave nearly an hour ago. The rest of Johnny’s employees have trickled out over the last hour – Taeyong first, followed by the guy with the dimples, and then finally Kun just ten short minutes ago. Johnny should be leaving any time now, Taeil thinks. Thank god he’d parked his car in the front of his shop today instead of in the back, or else there’s a good chance he might have gone through the back door and Taeil would have missed his chance.

After what feels like an eternity but was probably only ten more minutes, Johnny steps out onto the sidewalk, pausing to lock the doors behind him. It’s then that Taeil realizes his miscalculation – by the time he makes it down the steps and across the street, Johnny will almost definitely be long gone. Unless he’s the type to sit in his car for five minutes after getting in, but it’s doubtful.

Time for Plan B, then.

Taeil launches himself out of his chair so he can pry his window open. Sora tumbles out of his lap with a thump and an offended _meow_ , and Taeil knows he’ll pay for that later, but he’s got more pressing issues right now. “Johnny!” he shouts once he’s gotten his window open, hoping that Johnny will be able to hear him over the noise of a city street. At least the light is red, so the cars on the road aren’t moving at the moment. Johnny’s head whips around so quickly it makes Taeil wince. His gaze falls on Crumbles, but on the downstairs steps rather than the second story windows. “Look up!”

The way Johnny’s eyes widen as he looks up is visible to Taeil even with the distance between them. ‘Taeil?” he yells back. “Are you okay?”

Taeil huffs out an exasperated breath. “I’m fine!”

“Wait,” Johnny says. Taeil thinks, anyways. The light must have switched back to green, because the traffic starts moving again and the sound of Johnny’s voice is lost, but he’s pretty sure that’s what he said just by the movement of his lips. Taeil assumes he’s telling him to wait until the traffic stops again so they can hear each other, so he’s more than a little confused when he sees Johnny slide his phone out of his pocket and bring it to his face.

It makes more sense when Taeil’s phone rings approximately ten seconds later. His phone is on the arm of the chair he’d been sitting on, so Taeil’s able to reach out and grab it without moving from his new spot on the windowsill. “Hello?”

“What are you doing? Why are you hanging outside a window above Crumbles? Is it even safe up there?” Johnny rushes out, not even bothering to say hello.

“I live up here,” Taeil says, a little stunned. “But that’s not even the important part. I was waiting for you to leave because I didn’t want to bother you at work today since I heard that you were busy today, but I kind of realized that that was a shitty plan because you’d be gone before I made it downstairs and across the street to talk to you. So I had to think fast.”

“You could have called me,” Johnny answers, sounding incredulous.

Taeil shrugs, knowing Johnny can see him; they’re still making eye contact despite the physical distance between them, after all. “Didn’t think you’d pick up,” he says honestly.

“That hurts a little, but I deserve it,” Johnny says mildly. “So what’s so important you risked your life by hanging out a window?”

Taeil makes a dismissive noise. “Only my head and shoulders are out, and a ten foot drop wouldn’t kill me anyway.”

“Okay, fine, you wouldn’t die. But you’d get hurt.”

“Johnny. Stop changing the subject,” Taeil demands. “I called because I wanted to let you know that despite the fact that our date kind of sucked, it didn’t change the fact that I’m still really into you, and I think that if we give it a real chance something good could happen between us. If you still want to, that is,” he adds when Johnny stays silent for some of the most excruciating thirty seconds of Taeil’s life.

“Oh, I do,” Johnny says, voice low and pleased in a way that sends sparks through Taeil’s veins. “I really do. I have one condition, though.”

Taeil grins. “Name it,” he says eagerly.

“You have to plan our next date. I’m not taking responsibility if it also turns out to be a disaster.”

“Since you’re free on Sunday, Yuta owes me a favor and there’s an Irish festival going on downtown this weekend,” Taeil suggests. Yuta doesn’t actually owe him a favor, but there’s zero chance he’ll mind coming in on Sunday if it means that Taeil will be able to go out with Johnny.

“But we’re not Irish. Or white, even,” Johnny points out. “It’s also July? Why is there an _Irish_ festival, of all things, happening in July?”

“Does that really matter, though?” Taeil asks rhetorically. “It’s an excuse to spend some time outside drinking beer and eating festival foods, really. If you’re down.”

“I don’t know,” Johnny says, a teasing note to his voice.

“I’ll wear shorts,” Taeil tells him.

Taeil watches Johnny’s face light up. “Sold.”

 

***

 

Despite Taeil’s suggestion that they meet up at the festival site, Johnny insists on picking him up. Even though he apparently lives about half an hour away from their bakeries, and it would have taken him less time to drive himself to the festival. It’s stupid, but it makes Taeil feel a little warm and fuzzy on the inside anyway.

“Oh, nice,” Yuta says approvingly when Taeil pops into Crumbles to check in on things while he waits for Johnny to arrive. “You’ve got your thot shorts on. I approve.”

“That’s not a very nice thing to say to him, Yuta,” Jeno chastises as he comes out of the kitchen, a tray of rainbow chip cookies in his hands. He stops dead in his tracks when he sees Taeil, though. “Oh. Um.”

Yuta laughs. “See?”

Taeil shrugs. He promised Johnny he’d wear shorts, and it’s going to be hot out today. He might as well go for it. “They’re comfy,” he says as his phone chimes. “That’s probably Johnny, but I wanted to pop in and check on things before I left.”

“You’re feeling paranoid because Jeno tried to burn the place down the last time you went out with Johnny,” Yuta deduces correctly, rolling his eyes and ignoring Jeno’s yelp of protest. It’s a little freaky how well he can read Taeil sometimes. “It’ll be fine. Jungwoo’s in the kitchen now and Jaemin is coming in at two, and Jeno’s puppy eyes don’t work on me like they do Doie. Now go get your man, Taeilie,” he concludes with a smirk.

Jeno gives Yuta an incredulous look. “That’s a terrible pep talk.”

“For you, maybe, but it’s exactly what Taeil needs to hear,” Yuta retorts, and he’s right.

“I’m going,” Taeil announces, exhaling loudly. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t nervous; he has a feeling that if this date goes badly too, there won’t be a third chance.

Yuta blows a kiss at him. “Have fun! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” he adds sternly. Taeil huffs out a laugh at that, because there’s not much that rules out.

“You sound like his mom,” Jeno tells Yuta.

Taeil shakes his head as he closes the door on their bickering. Jeno had been so _shy_ when he’d come to work for them, and now he gives just as good as he gets. It never fails to make Taeil feel like maybe Jeno gets just as much out of working at Crumbles as they do having him work for them.

The first thing Taeil sees when he lets himself into Johnny’s car is a small bouquet of flowers sitting on the armrest between the front seats. The second thing he sees is the look of shock that forms on Johnny’s face, dropped jaw and all.

“Aww, are these for me?” Taeil asks, pointing to the flowers.

Johnny snaps his mouth closed and audibly swallows. “You weren’t kidding about the shorts, huh,” he says weakly.

“Nope,” Taeil answers as he buckles his seatbelt. “They’re comfy.”

Johnny mumbles something that sounds a little like _I bet they are_ , then clears his throat. “Anyway. Yeah, the flowers are for you. Do you want to run back inside to put them in some water? I was going to meet you, but I wasn’t sure if you were in the bakery or upstairs in your apartment until you came outside.”

Taeil thinks about it for a moment, but eventually shakes his head. He doesn’t feel like going back upstairs, and all three people in Crumbles currently would make a big fucking deal out of the flowers. It isn’t worth the hassle. “They’ll be okay for a few hours,” he decides. “Let’s go.”

Unlike their last car ride together, this one isn’t quiet at all. At Taeil’s urging, Johnny tells him about the three wedding receptions he’d attended in less than forty-eight hours over the past few days, which leads into Johnny telling him about the most disastrous wedding reception he’d ever attended. Before Taeil knows it, they’ve arrived at the festival grounds, and Johnny’s scowling at him because he’d managed to pull out his wallet to pay the parking attendant before Johnny could get to his.

“So,” Taeil says once they’ve entered the festival and braved the long lines to get cups of overpriced – yet delicious -- imported beer (well, cider, in Taeil’s case). “Are we going to talk about what happened on our last date?”

Johnny’s shoulders sag. “I was sort of hoping we would pretend that never happened,” he says meekly.

“I want to agree, but I think being honest and communicating from the start is more important for a relationship,” Taeil replies. He’s heard one too many of Yuta’s rants about the subject over the years to think otherwise.

“A relationship, huh,” Johnny says, smiling a little. It’s a shy smile, but a pleased one. “Fine, if you insist.”

“I do,” Taeil says quickly. “I’ll even start. I felt awkward because I had no idea that we were going to such a fancy restaurant when you said we’d go out for dinner, so I wasn’t prepared at all.”

Johnny’s smile slips off his face. “I felt like I had to impress you, but I was also trying to make up for how upset I made you when we first met, you know? I had one chance, and I completely blew it.”

“Johnny, no,” Taeil protests, reaching out and taking Johnny’s free hand in his. “I didn’t agree to go on that date with you because I was giving you one chance or something like that. I said yes because I’ve been drawn to you ever since we met. Even when I was mad at you. I thought that was obvious with how badly I overreacted when you tried to explain things to me. You have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

Johnny’s silent for a moment, like he’s trying to process what Taeil just said. “You’re holding my hand,” he says eventually, which isn’t what Taeil expected to hear at all.

“I am. Do you want me to stop?”

“No!” Johnny shouts, drawing a couple stares from the crowd around them. He shifts his hand so that he laces his fingers with Taeil’s and squeezes tightly. “I like holding hands,” he says matter of factly, “but how did you know I was embarrassed about our first date? Actually, how did you know I wasn’t busy today?”

Taeil mentally berates past Taeil of five minutes ago for preaching about honesty and open communication, because now he has no choice but to tell the truth. “I had a visitor the other day. Visitors, actually,” he amends, because it was Kun who had told him that Johnny would be free on Sunday rather than Ten. “I don’t think I was supposed to tell you, but I’m not about to be a hypocrite here.”

“I told Ten to stay out of it,” Johnny sighs as they enter an exhibit hall where Taeil knows all sorts of vendors are set up. “Let me guess, Jaehyun came over with him?”

Taeil doesn’t even know who Jaehyun _is_. “Kun, actually,” he says, tugging Johnny over to a booth where a candle seller is set up. “Don’t be mad at them, though. I would have given up on you if you’d kept refusing to text me back.”

“I’ll think about it.”

“Good. Now let go of my hand, please, I want to look at these candles,” Taeil adds, when his attempt to remove his hand from Johnny’s is met with resistance.

“You held my hand first though,” Johnny says, and when Taeil looks up at him, he’s pouting. The sales girl closest to them snickers, but Taeil can’t find it in himself to care.

“And I’ll hold it again after I buy some candles, okay?”

“Fine,” Johnny acquiesces with a huff, allowing Taeil to free his hand so he can pick up the grapefruit scented candle he’d been eyeing. “So…you like candles, huh?”

 

***

 

Taeil ends up spending more money than he probably should have by the time they leave the festival a few hours later, but he figures that it’s mostly Johnny’s fault. After all, Johnny talked him into buying at least three things he was going to walk away from originally. The mug he’d been convinced to buy after looking at it way too long will get a lot of usage, to be fair, but he’d regretted the deep fried Oreos thirty seconds after paying for them.

Johnny also insists on driving Taeil back home, even when Taeil tries to convince him that he can take the train back home, no big deal, seriously. “You left your flowers in my car, remember?” Johnny reminds him, and Taeil gives in without much more of a fight. The ride back to Crumbles is much quieter than the trip to the festival had been, but it’s a contended, companionable silence. Comfortable. So much so that if Taeil were to close his eyes, it would feel like Yuta was the one in the driver’s seat.

When Johnny pulls to a stop in front of Crumbles and kills the engine, Taeil’s tempted to ask him to come upstairs for dinner, maybe a movie on the couch afterwards. It’s on the tip of his tongue, even, but the rational part of his brain tells him that it’s too much, too soon, so he doesn’t. “What are you doing?” he asks when Johnny unbuckles his own seatbelt anyways.

“Walking you to your door, obviously,” Johnny grins. “What kind of date would it be if I didn’t?”

Taeil mentally swoons. “An awful one,” he agrees, playing along. “I’m not going upstairs yet, though,” he adds as he climbs out of the car.

“I can still walk you the five feet to the door,” Johnny shrugs, climbing out of the car himself. He’s got Taeil’s flowers in his hand, and when Taeil gets close enough to reach for them, he’s caught off guard when Johnny uses his other hand to grab Taeil’s wrist gently. “What would you say if I told you I wanted to kiss you?” he murmurs, his gaze dropping to Taeil’s mouth as he uses his grip on Taeil’s wrist to pull him closer, so close that Taeil nearly trips over Johnny’s feet.

Taeil licks his lips and watches as Johnny’s eyes follow the movement. “I would ask you what you’re waiting for,” he breathes out.

Taeil has to stand up on his tiptoes, but it’s worth the burn in his leg muscles when Johnny presses his lips to Taeil’s. He reaches up to brace his free hand against Johnny’s shoulder and sighs against his mouth.

Johnny takes complete advantage of the movement and deepens the kiss, licking into Taeil’s mouth in a way that feels almost desperate. Taeil kisses back just as fervently, not finding it in himself to care that it’s quickly becoming a little too heated considering they’re standing on a public street. They don’t break apart until the distinct sound of a wolf whistle comes from somewhere behind them, and Johnny’s lips are swollen and slick with spit when they do. It’s enough to tempt Taeil to dive back in, but Johnny laughs awkwardly and ducks his head before he can.

“One of your kids is glaring at us,” Johnny tells him, and it takes Taeil a good ten or fifteen seconds to process what on earth he even means by that. When it hits him, he groans and presses his forehead against Johnny’s shoulder.

 “Which one?” he asks, even though he _knows_ that Johnny doesn’t actually know any of their names.

“A short one?” Johnny says, sounding more like he’s asking a question himself than giving Taeil an answer. While he supposes that most people probably seem short to Johnny, he can’t really imagine anyone using that phrase to describe Jaemin or Jeno, who should be the only kids here right now.

“Taeil,” Renjun shouts, confirming his suspicions, “I bet the customers appreciate the free show, but are you trying to make the old lady next door hate us?”

Taeil whirls around so quickly that he ends up yanking his arm out of Johnny’s grasp. Renjun’s standing just outside Crumbles’ door with his arms crossed over his chest and a scowl painted on his features. “Mrs. Kim loves me, ask anyone,” he says. It’s true; over the years, she’s tried setting Taeil up with several of her grandchildren. He’d always refused, though, and eventually she’d settled for bring him or Yuta tea or containers of her homemade soup every now and then as an excuse to check up on them.

Renjun looks even more unimpressed, somehow. “I might have just saved you from getting a ticket for public indecency.”

That sounds pretty improbable, but Taeil lets it go and turns back to Johnny. “So I think it’s safe to say that we should do that again sometime, huh.”

“The date, or the kiss?” Johnny teases.

“Yes,” Taeil answers anyways. “Let me know when you get home safe, alright?”

Renjun makes a disgusted noise and goes back inside, likely to tell Yuta and whoever else is at the counter right now what he witnessed on the sidewalk a moment before. It means Taeil’s going to get grilled about his date when he goes inside unless he decides to avoid the bakery completely (which he won’t), but strangely enough he can’t find it in himself to be bothered about that, either.

“Of course,” Johnny answers, pressing the bouquet of flowers that somehow managed to avoid being crushed while they were pressed between them during their kiss into Taeil’s hand.

And if Taeil blows a kiss at Johnny as he drives away, well, there’s no one around to see it but Johnny himself.

 

***

 

It’s amazing how _easy_ they fall into something that feels an awful lot like a relationship after just one successful date, Taeil thinks. Johnny working right across the street means that Taeil sees him more often than not, even if it is just for a few stolen minutes during Johnny’s lunch break on Taeil’s days off due to Johnny’s currently insanely busy schedule. It means that they’re not able to plan an actual third date right away, but the way that Taeil can see how obviously Johnny tries to make sure to see him each day more than makes up for it.

A knock on Taeil’s door on one of his new Tuesdays off startles him awake from an ill-advised nap he’d been taking on his couch. (It wasn’t his fault that the drama one of his customers had recommended to him turned out to be boring as fuck, okay?) “Coming!” he shouts, stumbling over an apron he’d apparently tossed on the ground at some point on his way to the door.

Standing on the top of his steps is Donghyuck, who has a white bakery box precariously balanced in one hand, his other hand raised as if he’d been right about to knock again. “Finally,” he grumbles.

“I was asleep,” Taeil says defensively, and then, “why are you bringing me cookies from downstairs? I wasn’t aware of any recipe testing going on today.”

Donghyuck rolls his eyes. “Let me in, Taeil, it’s hot out here,” he whines.

“Shit, sorry,” Taeil says immediately, stepping aside to let Donghyuck inside the apartment. The kid sighs in relief, even though it’s not _that_ hot outside today due to the cloud cover. That’s not to say that he doesn’t have his own apartment cold enough that he’d been curled up under a blanket while he’d been lounging on the couch watching TV, but still.

“This isn’t one of our boxes,” Donghyuck says, setting the bakery box down on the coffee table and making himself at home on Taeil’s couch. “Your boyfriend brought it over. Well, sent it over, some tall guy with big eyes came over. But when we said that you weren’t there today he insisted that we bring it to you instead of eating it ourselves,” he concludes with a mild pout.

“How sad,” Taeil deadpans, leaning down to pick the box up himself – he  doesn’t understand why Donghyuck hadn’t just handed it to him in the first place, honestly – and lifts the lid carefully. Inside is a small cake, decorated with an array so breathtakingly intricate that Taeil’s convinced they’re real until the touches the tip of his finger to an especially large rose and comes away with icing on his finger. “Holy shit,” he breathes out.

“Let me see,” Donghyuck demands, launching himself back onto his feet so he can peer over Taeil’s shoulder. “Oh my god, did he make those himself? They look real.”

“Think so,” Taeil murmurs, noticing a small envelope taped to the inside of the lid of the box. It would be impossible for him to remove it while balancing the cake in one hand, though, and he’s loathe to ask Donghyuck to either hold the cake again or to remove the envelope for him, as his nosy ass wouldn’t rest until he read whatever note’s inside too. Looks like he’ll have to wait until Donghyuck goes back to work, then. Speaking of… “I know you’re not on your lunch break right now, Hyuck.”

Donghyuck makes a face. “I was hoping you wouldn’t realize that.”

“Is something wrong?” Taeil asks concernedly.

“Stop worrying, everything’s fine, I just wanted some of that cake,” Donghyuck admits with a shrug. “I bet it’s good. People don’t pay as much money for cakes as they do for his if they suck. Did you know that your boyfriend makes bank? Jeno and I looked at his website.”

Taeil hasn’t looked at Johnny’s website – hadn’t even thought to do so, if he’s being honest – but he’s not surprised by that at all and says as much as he closes the lid of the bakery box and cradles it close to his chest. “I’ll save you some and bring it to you tomorrow,” he promises Donghyuck. “Now go back to work, I’m sure Jungwoo needs you by now.”

“You’re no fun,” Donghyuck grouses, but he still blows a kiss in Taeil’s direction as he lets himself out. Once the door is firmly shut behind him, Taeil ducks into his kitchen so he can set the box on the counter and carefully peel the envelope away.

Inside is one of Johnny’s business cards, and Taeil’s disappointed until he flips it over. Scrawled on the back in writing so messy that it takes Taeil a good minute to parse it out is _if you’re free tonight, I’ll be alone in the kitchen after six…you should come visit_ , complete with a smiley face and a small, careful heart at the end. It isn’t signed, but it doesn’t need to be.

In the end, it takes Taeil maybe ten seconds to decide that this is an invitation he can’t refuse.

Six fifteen finds Taeil standing outside Tiers of Joy’s back door, wondering if he should go ahead and knock here or if he should circle back around to the front. It might be considered rude to be back here, where customers aren’t supposed to be; but then again, Taeil’s not really a customer. Not at all. And besides, if Johnny has music or something playing to keep him company while he’s alone in the kitchen, it’s likely that he won’t hear Taeil knocking on the front door, right?

With that in mind, Taeil takes a deep breath and raps against the heavy wooden door. It swings open almost immediately, and Taeil’s greeted by Johnny’s beaming face. “You got my note,” he says happily.

“I did,” Taeil confirms, smiling up at him. “I decided that this sounded a million times better than my previous evening plans,” he adds as Johnny steps aside to let him in. Inside, the kitchen is nearly spotless, save for the wide array of bowls and decorating supplies spread out across the large island counter with a white two-tiered cake sitting in the center of it all. There’s also a stool placed just to the side of where Johnny’s obviously been standing to work on it that Taeil assumes Johnny set up just for him.

“Oh? And what were they?” Johnny asks curiously, proving Taeil’s theory right when he gestures towards the stool, indicating that Taeil should take a seat. He does, but not before moving it as close as he dares to Johnny’s workstation.

“Ordering Chinese takeout and watching a movie, most likely. Stiff competition, I know,” Taeil teases.

“I don’t know, that sounds like a good night to me,” Johnny replies.

“Depending on when you finish up here, the invitation’s open,” Taeil says without thinking. He doesn’t want to take it back, though, but – “Please don’t rush this for my sake, though,” he adds.

Johnny’s smile is so, so fond that it almost hurts. “This is pretty simple. I can have it ready to go and be done with cleanup before eight. I just wanted to see you, and this seemed like my best option.”

“In that case, you should get to work. I want to see this,” Taeil says firmly. “Was the cake you sent me today an extra one? Like, that someone ordered but changed their minds about?”

Johnny rubs the back of his neck with one hand as he reaches for a piping bag with his other. “Oh, no. That was for you all along. I wanted to practice my floral piping though, so I used you as a guinea pig.”

“It’s too pretty to eat, though.”

“Nonsense,” Johnny says as he creates a rose with short, practiced motions. “Unless you’re not a cake person and are trying to spare my feelings, which I can accept, but if not you definitely should at least try it. I remembered you saying you liked red velvet cookies the day we met, so I made you a red velvet cake.”

“Oh,” Taeil blinks. “In that case, we can have it after our Chinese food, maybe?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Johnny agrees.

They lapse into silence after that, since Johnny needs to concentrate on the job in front of him, but Taeil doesn’t mind. Actually, Taeil is mesmerized by how Johnny makes piping all sorts of tiny details onto the cake look effortless. He’s no stranger to decorating baked goods himself, but there’s no way he could do what Johnny’s doing right now.

Johnny shakes his head vigorously when Taeil voices the thought. “You could,” he says confidently. “It would take time and practice, but you could. I can show you sometime, if you’d like.”

“Maybe after wedding season ends. I know free time is a luxury for you right now,” Taeil agrees.

“So in December, then,” Johnny jokes.

“More like January. December is by far our busiest month at Crumbles,” Taeil says. He’s well aware of what that implies – that he’s anticipating being a part of Johnny’s life like this six months from now. He just hopes that Johnny gets it too. He thinks Johnny does, based on the pleased smile that forms on his face as he finishes piping a delicate leaf.

The cake, when Johnny finishes it, is stunning. It’s hard to believe that Johnny took it from plain to the work of art sitting in front of them in less than an hour and a half; if Taeil hadn’t watched it happen with his own two eyes, he would have sworn it took hours longer than it did. He tells Johnny this, who gives him a crinkly-eyed smile.

“This was pretty simple, actually. We’ve had orders that have taken either Kun or I days to finish, though. I’ll have to show you our look book at some point,” Johnny says, putting his hands on his hips and surveying his kitchen. “You know, if you wanted to go back to your place and order food while I clean up here, I won’t be offended.”

Taeil snorts. “How about I help you clean up so we can both go over there and order food sooner?” he suggests, knowing he won’t be taking no for an answer.

Johnny accepts his extremely generous offer (he’d have been a fool not to, Taeil thinks), and it seems like no time at all passes before Taeil leads Johnny up the stairs to his apartment, apologizing for how narrow the landing is. Johnny brushes him off, like Taeil had known he would even before he started speaking, but he still hates that Johnny has to wait on the second step from the top while Taeil unlocks the door.

“Wow,” Johnny says, awe clear in his voice, once Taeil’s let them in. “I’m seriously so jealous of your setup, you have no idea. If my building had a second story I would have converted the upstairs into an apartment too.”

“I love it,” Taeil admits freely. “I offered the apartment up here to Yuta at first, but he said it was too small for him. But it’s perfect for me and Sora.”

A minute frown appears on Johnny’s face. “Sora?”

Taeil won’t lie, he’s confused by Johnny’s reaction at first before it hits him. “Oh, my cat!” he exclaims. “I told you about how I found her, I think?”

Understanding dawns on Johnny’s face. “I believe so, yeah.”

“Well, obviously I had to keep her,” Taeil says matter-of-factly. “I mean, Yuta named her, but she’s mine. You probably won’t see much of her, though, she’s pretty wary of strangers. You can sit down while I go get the menu from the kitchen,” he adds, noting with approval how Johnny toes his shoes off in the entryway before doing just that.

When Taeil comes back from the kitchen, delivery menu and two bottles of water in his hand, he’s stunned to see Sora sitting on the arm of his couch, engaged in what seems to be quite the intense staring contest with Johnny.

“This baby doesn’t like strangers?” Johnny asks, not looking away from Sora despite the fact that he clearly heard Taeil’s return. “I find that hard to believe.”

“She still hides for the first hour Doyoung visits, and he’s up here at least once a month,” Taeil says weakly, watching as Sora leans forward to sniff Johnny’s outstretched hand curiously. “He won’t believe me when I tell him about this.”

“Guess I’m special,” Johnny says smugly.

“Guess so,” Taeil agrees.

Sora sticks around even though the delivery person knocking on the door, something that usually sends her running for the comfort of Taeil’s bedroom. She seems completely fascinated by Johnny, not that Taeil blames her, and it seems to be mutual by the way Taeil catches Johnny sharing his chicken with her more than once.

“You’ll spoil her if you keep that up,” Taeil warns Johnny mildly as he stacks their empty containers in a neat pile.

Johnny plucks the pile of containers out of Taeil’s hands and follows him back into the kitchen. “She’s a good girl, I’m sure she deserves it,” he shrugs. “Where’s your trash can?”

“Under the sink,” Taeil answers as he grabs a knife from the drawer. “You’ll have to cut the cake, there’s no way I can cut into something that beautiful.”

Johnny huffs out a laugh. “It’s buttercream and food coloring, and it tastes better than it looks. It’s fine,” he says, but he takes the knife from Taeil anyways without much of a fuss. Or, so Taeil thinks; he’s taken completely by surprise when Johnny tugs his hand forward so that his thumb drags through one of the flowers he’d admired so much as soon as he opens the box.

“Johnny!” Taeil says, shocked. His thumb is covered in yellow frosting now, and the flower is ruined. And yeah, he knows that it was made to be eaten – it’s _cake_ , for god’s sake – he can’t help but think of how he’d probably kill someone if they’d intentionally messed up one of his cookies like that. Especially now that he knows how hard Johnny must have worked on this cake, even if he claims it’s not that hard. Yeah, okay.

“You can’t be mad at me, I made it,” Johnny points out. “But see? It’s not untouchable.”

“I guess,” Taeil grumbles, craning his head over his shoulder to see if he’d left a cloth by the sink earlier. “I need to wash this off, my hand’s getting sticky.”

Before he can, though, Johnny ducks his head and wraps his lips around Taeil’s thumb. The moan Taeil lets out when he pulls off with a pop a moment later would be embarrassing if it wasn’t for the way he watches Johnny’s eyes turn dark. “Johnny,” he says, voice shaky.

Johnny licks his lips. “Taeil,” he answers, reaching for him. It would be so, so easy to let Johnny tug him into his arms, but –

“We can’t,” Taeil moans. “If I get you into my bed, I won’t want to let you leave tonight and I can’t do that to you. Not when it means you’ll have to go home and back before you open your shop in the morning.”

Johnny’s face, which had frozen when Taeil had first said _we can’t_ , relaxes. “Is that the only reason?” he asks, sounding relieved. When Taeil nods, he starts laughing. “I keep a change of clothes in the trunk of my car in case of kitchen disasters.”

“In that case,” Taeil says, a slow smile spreading across his face, “put the knife down, but bring the cake.”

 

***

 

The sound of an unfamiliar alarm jolts Taeil awake much earlier than he wants to be awake, considering it’s his second day off. “Stop it,” he whines, reaching out blindly and slapping the first solid thing he makes contact with. Judging by the groan, it was probably Johnny’s stomach.

“Sorry, sorry,” Johnny whispers quickly. “I forgot to change it, it’s set earlier than I needed it to be since I won’t have to drive in today.”

Taeil blinks his eyes open and props himself up on one elbow. “It’s fine, I can go back to sleep after you leave,” he yawns. In all honesty, though, the sight of Johnny’s bare chest, littered with marks Taeil had left with his hands and teeth the night before, is doing more to wake him up than even the strongest coffee ever could.

“Stop that,” Johnny admonishes him, clearly noticing where Taeil’s gaze is focused. “I know I just said we woke up early, but we didn’t wake up early enough for round four.”

“Maybe tomorrow, then,” Taeil says regretfully. “You do have time to eat breakfast if I make it while you’re in the shower though, right?”

Johnny makes a sleepy noise of assent. “And coffee?” he asks hopefully.

“And coffee,” Taeil sighs, sliding out of bed. “Towels are under the sink in the bathroom, by the way,” he adds, smacking the curve of Johnny’s ass just to hear him yelp. It’s a great ass, and he wants to touch it again. So sue him.

Taeil’s hesitant to leave Johnny alone in his bedroom at first, afraid that he might drift off to sleep again, but it quickly turns out to be an unfounded fear as he hears the shower start up as he measures out coffee grounds. Since he has no idea if Johnny’s the type of person who takes long, lingering showers or not, he opts for whipping up a couple of quick omelets instead of anything more complex in the interest of time. It turns out to be a good call, because the shower shuts off right after Taeil removes the pan from the heat.

“Smells good,” Johnny says a moment later, coming up behind Taeil and crowding him against the stove. “Whatever you’re making does too,” he adds, and Taeil elbows him in the stomach even as he laughs helplessly.

“Go sit down,” he says, turning around and pointing the spatula in his hands at Johnny as threateningly as he can. “I already poured you a cup of coffee, and sugar and cream is on the table.”

“You’re the best,” Johnny mumbles, pressing a kiss against the side of Taeil’s head before backing off like instructed. When Taeil comes over to the table himself a minute later, a plate in each hand, Johnny’s stirring his coffee with a frankly adorable intensity. He doesn’t even look up when Taeil sets one of the plates down in front of him.

They eat in relative silence, save for Sora’s plaintive meows (she doesn’t even like eggs, the brat), until Johnny sets his fork to the side once he’s about halfway finished with his breakfast. “So, Mr. Open and Honest Communication,” he says playfully, “do we need to talk about this?”

Taeil chews thoughtfully. “Maybe,” he says once he’s swallowed. “I don’t know about you, but I’m counting last night as a date.”

“Agreed. I don’t let just anyone into my kitchen.” That doesn’t surprise Taeil one bit, as he’s much the same way.

“And I close Crumbles tomorrow night, but if you wanted to maybe pack an overnight bag and come hang out upstairs until I got off, I’m sure Sora wouldn’t mind,” Taeil continues.

Johnny chuckles. “And what about Sora’s human?”

“Sora’s human wouldn’t mind coming home to find the guy they’re seeing waiting for them.”

“What if…what if Sora’s human came home tomorrow night to find their boyfriend waiting for them, instead of just the guy they’ve gone on a few dates with?” Johnny asks carefully.

Taeil exhales slowly. “He would like that a lot.”

Johnny breaks out into a grin. “That’s settled, then. But only if my boyfriend walks me to work today.”

Taeil grins back. “I think that can be arranged.”

 

***

 

“Hey, I just realized something,” Donghyuck says on Friday afternoon, his mouth threatening to turn down into a pout. “You promised you’d bring me a slice of that cake the cake man made for you, but you never did.”

Memories of icing streaked sheets and skin flash through Taeil’s mind, and he has to close his eyes to keep his composure. “Sorry about that,” he says shamelessly. “I’m sure there’ll be other cakes you can eat, though.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'know, last week i was thinking that the entire fic would be around 32k total......whoops!
> 
> i hope y'all enjoyed!! especially after last week's downer ending, but see! it got better! quickly! ;) but now i can't believe there's only one chapter left already...
> 
> come say hi on [twitter](https://twitter.com/zeromiles5) or [cc](https://curiouscat.me/zeromiles5)! (or gently point out any typos, i've been sick as hell this week and might have missed some!) final chapter should be up next week, as i'm about to go on spring break!


	7. something good and right and real

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here it is, the final chapter! i decided to post it today instead of yesterday because today marks one year of me becoming a kpop fan, so it felt fitting ;) now onto the chapter!!

“Oh, goddamn it, not again,” Doyoung groans. “Taeil, _please_.”

Taeil nips playfully at Johnny’s bottom lip one last time before pulling away from his boyfriend’s mouth. “You’re just jealous, Doie,” he says, leaning up so he can look at Doyoung over Johnny’s shoulder.

Johnny sniggers. “He shouldn’t be, not based on what I walked in on at Ten’s apartment last week.”

Both Taeil and Doyoung gasp, and Taeil’s not sure which one sounds more offended. “You didn’t tell me anything about that,” Taeil says, letting the betrayal seep into his words.

“Don’t you fucking dare, Seo,” Doyoung warns.

Johnny sighs so dramatically that it’s obviously fake, although Taeil doesn’t think Doyoung would know that. “Sorry, babe, I promised Ten I wouldn’t say anything,” he tells Taeil with a sly wink. “And Kun. I promised Kun too.”

Doyoung lets out a strangled scream. “That’s as good as telling him, Johnny! Why don’t you learn how to knock!”

“I could say the same to you, actually,” Johnny points out, taking a step back from where he’d been standing between Taeil’s legs. Taeil tries to hook his ankles around the backs of Johnny’s thighs to keep him from leaving, but to no avail. “Because I definitely closed the door to Taeil’s office.”

If looks could kill, the one Doyoung gives Johnny would probably incinerate him. “It is just as much my office or Yuta’s office as it is Taeil’s office.”

“Doyoung,” Taeil cuts in, “did you have an actual reason for coming to find me? I told Renjun I was going on my lunch break when Johnny got here, and that was like twenty minutes ago.”

“Um, actually, it was more like forty-five minutes ago,” Doyoung huffs, but he visibly relaxes. “But yeah, I did. Mrs Kim is here, she wants to talk to you and Yuta.”

Taeil gives Doyoung an incredulous look. “Did you tell her that Yuta went to Japan to visit his family like he does every spring? Or that he won’t be back until next Monday?”

“Of course not, Taeil, I definitely did not tell her those two obvious things,” Doyoung says sarcastically. “She told me to get my ass back here and get you anyways.”

Johnny turns to Taeil and gives him a confused look. “Is this that demanding lady who always wants a ton of custom cookies made by you and only you?”

“No, that’s Mrs. Park,” Taeil answers, sliding off the desk. “Mrs. Kim owns the tea shop next door, remember?”

“Obviously not,” Johnny remarks, following Taeil out of the office and into the kitchen. Jungwoo’s standing at one of the counters with several bowls and an industrial sized container of Nutella in front of him, and Taeil watches as Johnny draws to a stop, looking fascinated. “Babe, can I?” he asks.

Taeil rolls his eyes, but fondly, you know? “If you make a mess you have to help him clean it up,” he warns. Johnny makes a face, but he changes course to peer over Jungwoo’s shoulder instead anyways.

Mrs. Kim is sitting at one of the tables in front of the windows, looking outside at the street in front of them. It’s raining, because it’s springtime and rain is something that happens in the spring, as everyone constantly reminds Taeil each year, but she looks just as annoyed by it as Taeil feels deep down in his soul. A half-eaten shortbread cookie sits on a plate in front of her, next to a plain manila folder.

“Terrible fucking weather we’re having,” Mrs. Kim comments as Taeil slides into the chair across from her.

Taeil hums in agreement. “My boyfriend loves it because he swears he works best when it’s raining, but I don’t understand that at all,” he confides, a touch conspiratorially. It makes her laugh, anyways, which is what he was going for. She’s a lot less intimidating when she’s in a good mood.

“Oh, if that’s his worst flaw then I think you’ve done alright for yourself,” she answers, turning to study him contemplatively. “Dongyoung said Yuta is in Japan? He went late this year, no? It’s already May.”

“His sister had a baby last week and he wanted to be there for her, so he delayed his trip a couple of weeks. He’s flying back on Saturday though.”

Mrs. Kim’s face softens. “Oh, that’s wonderful. I’ll be sure to give him my congratulations the next time I see him,” she says, folding her hands together on top of the folder. “I did want to speak to you both today, but time is of the essence here so I trust you’ll discuss what I’m about to tell you with Yuta before he comes back,” she continues, suddenly all business. “I’m retiring. I’m closing my store down in September.”

Taeil opens his mouth. Closes it again. “I, um,” he says, not sure how to react. Is this good news, or bad? He honestly doesn’t know.

Mrs. Kim clearly sees his struggle, and laughs a little. “It’s good news, don’t worry. My husband and I decided we wanted to travel some before we get too old,” she says, reaching over and patting Taeil’s hand. “Be happy for me.”

“That’s exciting, then,” Taeil manages. “And I appreciate you letting us know, so we can prepare for new neighbors in the fall.”

“New neighbors?” Mrs. Kim asks, arching an eyebrow. “I hope not. That’s actually why I’m here,” she says, reaching for the folder and flipping it open. “I have a proposal…”

 

***

 

“You’ve looked spooked ever since you talked to Mrs. Kim earlier,” Johnny says, not looking away from the TV. “Do you wanna talk about it?”

Taeil picks up the remote and pauses the movie that’s playing. “She’s retiring in the fall. Wants to sell her building. Obviously, because it’s prime real estate now, why would she just hang on to it?”

“Let me guess, she wants to sell it to you and Yuta?” Johnny asks shrewdly, shifting so he can look Taeil square in the face with an intensity that still makes Taeil squirm a little, even now that they’ve been together for more than nine months.

“She wants to sell it to us, yeah. For less than what we paid for Crumbles to begin with years ago. Like, she could probably get double what she’s willing to give it to us for on the market easily. How did you know?”

Johnny takes Taeil’s hand and squeezes. “It’s kind of obvious. Why else would she tell you she’s retiring so far in advance?”

Okay, point. “It’s just a lot to think about, and I don’t expect to hear back from Yuta for a couple days,” Taeil says worriedly.

“If you guys buy it, we could always combine our bakeries instead of having two on the same street,” Johnny says casually. Too casually, really.

“You just want Jeno to work for you instead of me,” Taeil retorts.

“Hey, all I’m saying is that between him and Jaehyun, everyone who comes in for a consult would try to book us. That kind of power combined would be irresistible. But seriously, babe, this isn’t a decision you have to make overnight. Just talk to Yuta about it when you get a chance, yeah? I know it’s not something you were thinking about right now, but it might be an opportunity you can’t pass up.”

Taeil nods, relaxing into Johnny’s side. “Alright. It’s just a lot to have sprung on you, you know?”

“And you don’t deal well with sudden surprises, I know,” Johnny soothes. “Want me to run you a bath? Pour you a glass of wine? I think you still have one of those horrifyingly pink bottles in the fridge from when Yuta came over before he left.”

“Both?” Taeil asks hopefully, tilting his head back to give Johnny his most pleading stare. Johnny gives him a stern look at first, but his expression quickly crumbles. “I love you,” Taeil adds, as sweet as he can manage.

Johnny tries to scowl but smiles instead. “I know. I love you too.”

 

***

 

Much like he’d suspected might be the case, Taeil doesn’t get a chance to talk business to Yuta until after he returns from overseas. Taeil goes over to his apartment after his shift ends Sunday – yeah, he has a boyfriend now and it’s wonderful, but he still missed his best friend and he knows Yuta will welcome the company to help him defeat jet lag. He’d be going over even if Mrs. Kim’s proposal wasn’t still weighing heavily on his mind days later. Yuta’s just as happy to see him as Taeil had known he would be, and he fills Yuta in on all of the gossip he missed over the past couple of weeks (Doyoung potentially having a thing with Ten _and_ Kun included) before filling him in about potentially buying Mrs. Kim’s building.

Yuta listens quietly, taking it all in. “I wasn’t expecting that.”

Taeil snorts. “Yeah, you think I was?”

Yuta reaches out and pats him on the head. “Poor Taeilie. What did Johnny think about it? Don’t try me, I know you told him about it,” he adds sternly when Taeil makes a face.

“Not a whole lot, actually,” Taeil admits. “He mostly made a joke about how we should combine our two bakeries.”

A considering look passes across Yuta’s face, which is about the last thing Taeil expected. “Really,” he says shrewdly. “That would be good for us, actually.”

Taeil blinks rapidly. “It would?”

“Well, yeah,” Yuta says. “We would get more traffic, between his customers and ours. We would be able to have Taeyong’s help more often than not instead of having to steal him from Johnny on our busiest days, and it would be really good for Jungwoo too. You know the kid’s got a talent for decorating cookies. Imagine what he could do with cakes.”

“But he was joking, Yuta,” Taeil points out.

“Well, you know what they say,” Yuta says, “there’s always at least a little truth to a joke, right?”

Taeil crosses his arms over his chest. “What about Doyoung?”

“What about Doie?” Yuta asks.

“I literally just told you that he’s apparently got something going on with Kun that no one wants to tell me about. Not even Johnny. What if it’s something bad, and he couldn’t work with Kun and we lose him? I don’t want to lose Doyoung as an employee _or_ as a friend.”

“We talk to him and make sure he’s okay with it before you ask Johnny if he was serious,” Yuta answers. “Simple. Maybe even talk to Jungwoo, too.”

“Okay, but are you sure?” Taeil asks worriedly. Working with Johnny instead of separate like they are now would be a dream come true, honestly, but it would change a lot of things. For all of them, but Taeil suspects it would change for Yuta the most, and with everything Yuta’s done for him over the years Taeil would hate for him to feel obligated to do this.

Yuta grins easily. “I’m sure. Dude, you know that Johnny and I are close now, but also that I wouldn’t even consider something that I didn’t honestly think would benefit Crumbles. Okay?”

“Okay,” Taeil agrees quietly. “We’ll talk to Doyoung.”

 

***

 

Doyoung swears he’s okay with Crumbles potentially merging with Tiers of Joy, and even though Taeil knows Yuta doesn’t quite believe him, they have no choice but to take him at his word. Asking Johnny if he was actually serious then, of course, falls to Taeil.

“Taeilie, hi!” Mark says joyfully when Taeil stops by Tiers of Joy a couple of days later, laden down with several paper bags. “Did you bring me food?”

Taeil squints at him. “I thought you had class today.”

“Just a review session since exams start next week, so I didn’t go. There’s no way I can fail that class, even if I fail the exam. Which I won’t, so,” Mark says dismissively. “But is that a no to lunch? Aww, man.”

Taeil curses under his breath and pulls a sandwich out of one of the bags. He’s sure whoever winds up sandwich-less will understand, right? Mark’s overjoyed smile is worth it, anyway.

Johnny and Taeyong are in the kitchen staring at a sketch rolled out on the counter in front of them when Taeil enters. Taeyong notices him first, and his eyes zero in on the paper bags much like Mark had. “Oh, lunch? Taeil, you shouldn’t have,” he says, fluttering his eyelashes.

“Don’t flirt with my boyfriend,” Johnny says, reaching out to flick Taeyong on the side of the head. “And go take your break.”

Taeyong pouts. “You’re kicking me out of the kitchen to spend time with Taeil. I see how it is.”

“Sure am,” Johnny answers, rolling up the sketch. “Go away.”

Taeyong huffs a little more, but he accepts a sandwich from Taeil before flouncing out of the kitchen. The ringing of the bell on the front door follows shortly after, so Taeil figures he’s probably headed over to Crumbles to visit with Jaemin and Jungwoo. Last December had been so busy for Crumbles that they’d ended up borrowing Taeyong from Johnny for almost the entire month just to keep their heads above water, and he’d gotten close with all of Taeil’s employees over that time. Taeyong popping in at Crumbles during his lunch breaks to say hi is almost as common as Johnny doing so these days.

“You look like you have something on your mind again,” Johnny says curiously, staring at him. Taeil can’t help but blush a little, having Johnny’s attention focused on him like this, even after all this time. (He kind of hopes it never stops, but he’ll never admit it out loud to anyone. Taeil thinks Johnny knows, though.)

“Do you remember what we talked about last week?” Taeil asks.

Johnny furrows his brow. “We talked about a lot of stuff last week, babe. Are you talking about the wax thing? Because I already told you I’m down to try it.”

“No, I knew that already,” Taeil hisses. “God, Johnny, why would you bring that up when we’re both on the clock?”

“Sorry,” Johnny says, even though Taeil knows he’s not sorry at all. “What do you mean, then?”

Taeil sighs. “I was actually talking about you saying that we could combine the two bakeries if Yuta and I do buy Mrs. Kim’s building.” Johnny clearly wasn’t expecting that, because he chokes on the water he’d just taken a sip of.

“I didn’t think you took that seriously,” Johnny manages.

“I actually thought you were joking until Yuta pointed out that you wouldn’t have said it if it wasn’t something you’d thought about before.”

“Nothing gets by him, huh?” Johnny asks, sounding impressed. “If I became business partners with you guys, would he learn how to read my mind too, or is that a best friend thing?”

Taeil laughs. “He’d probably learn how to read your mind too, honestly. It makes things easier, though. But he was right? It’s something you’d be interested in doing?”

Johnny nods. “I know it wouldn’t be easy, and we’d probably have to see a lawyer to draw up an official contract and go to the bank and see if it’s even possible first, but yeah. I think it could work. I was going to bring it up to you guys eventually, but this whole thing with Mrs. Kim came up now, so,” he trails off, shrugging. “But life’s about taking risks, right?”

“Right,” Taeil agrees. He might not particularly like risks, but even he has to admit the biggest ones he’s taken have paid off. He has both a successful business and a Johnny, after all.

“I can call Sicheng tomorrow to see if he can fit us in soon,” Johnny says, and clearly mistakes Taeil’s look of panic as one of confusion. “Ah, he’s the guy at the bank who helped me get the loan to buy this building. He’s a really smart guy, so if anyone can help us figure out how to make this work with the loans and mortgages involved, it’s him.”

“Sounds good,” Taeil says. Initial irrational reaction aside, there’s no way that the Sicheng Johnny knows is the same Sicheng Taeil knew in college, right?

 

***

 

“Oh my fucking god,” Yuta says gleefully. “Taeil.”

“Shut the fuck up, Yuta.”

“ _Taeil_ ,” Yuta repeats. “Oh man, even if he shoots us down and tells us that there’s no way to make the financials work here, this was all worth it anyways. I can’t wait to see his face when he sees you again.”

“I’m so lost,” Johnny says.

Taeil stares down at the folder in his lap, like he’s been doing ever since one of the bank tellers had told them that Mr. Dong would be with them shortly. “We knew Sicheng in college.”

“Oh, you guys were friends?” Johnny says interestedly. “How didn’t you know Kun, then? Sicheng’s his best friend.”

“I wouldn’t call us friends,” Yuta says, snickering. “Would we, Taeilie?”

“I’m going to kill you and no one will ever find your body,” Taeil snarls. Of course, that’s when the bank teller comes back to lead them into Sicheng’s office, and she clearly hears him based on the horrified look she gives Taeil. Of course.

Yuta has to cling to Johnny for support when Sicheng looks up, sees Taeil standing in the doorway, and drops the mug he’d been holding. At least someone’s amused by the whole thing, Taeil thinks sourly as he rushes to try and help Sicheng deal with the coffee he’d just dumped all over his desk. He gives Taeil a grateful smile, one that would have left Taeil buzzing for days so many years ago, but now just makes him feel kinda nice.

“Oh, I get it now,” Johnny says after a moment. “Huh.”

Yuta calms down eventually once the coffee’s been cleaned up, and it doesn’t take long for them to get down to business. The initial awkwardness and the fact that Taeil knows Yuta will never let this go, ever, is all worth it whenever Sicheng closes the folder Taeil had brought, smiles, and tells them that as far as finances are concerned he sees no reason why a merger won’t work financially. He even goes as far as to give Taeil several options for combining the two mortgages he’ll soon have into one, something that his own lender hadn’t bothered doing whenever he’d called them the other day to look into taking out a second business mortgage.

“Taeil,” Sicheng says when they’re gathering up their things. “It was really nice to see you again.”

“You, too,” Taeil nods. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Yuta gently usher Johnny out of Sicheng’s small office. “It definitely surprised me, but it was nice,” he adds.

Sicheng smiles. “Yeah, it surprised me too, obviously,” he rolls his eyes, “but you’re really doing well for yourself, aren’t you? You and Yuta. I always knew those big ideas you talked about in those business classes would work for you.”

Taeil feels himself turning red. “Thank you. Um, you should stop by Crumbles sometime. You probably have the address in the stuff Johnny sent you, but if not, you can find us online or on Instagram or something. And if you do, I’ll give you a dozen cookies on the house.”

“I’d like that,” Sicheng answers.

“But not as a date or anything!” Taeil adds quickly. “Obviously. At least, I think obviously?”

Apparently, he’s never going to stop being awkward around Sicheng Dong. Old habits die hard, or something.

“Yes, Taeil, it’s pretty obvious you and Johnny are crazy about each other,” Sicheng says, sounding amused. “But I’ll stop by your place soon.”

“Sounds good,” Taeil says, giving Sicheng an awkward wave before ducking out of the office himself. Johnny and Yuta are waiting for him in the lobby, and Johnny looks amused. Combined with the way that Yuta’s talking with his hands, that means nothing good for Taeil.

Sure enough, Johnny smirks at him even as he takes Taeil’s hand in his. “So.”

“Yuta, we promised we wouldn’t bring up the Sicheng incident ever again,” Taeil whines, even as Yuta holds the door open for him and Johnny.

“Wrong, we promised we wouldn’t bring it up for a while. It’s been like a year, I think that’s a while,” Yuta grins. “Besides, Johnny thought it was cute.”

Taeil glares up at Johnny, who shrugs. “I do think it’s cute. You care so deeply, babe. You show it in weird ways, but that’s what makes you you.”

Yuta groans. “Okay, I get it, you guys are cute and in love, please consider the single person here.”

Taeil sticks his tongue out at Yuta; honestly, he’s the one who started this. He doesn’t get to complain just because his attempt to embarrass Taeil backfired. “I’m not even sorry. Get used to it.”

“I can still change my mind, we haven’t signed any contracts yet,” Yuta retorts.

“You promised, no take backs,” Johnny tells him. Taeil smiles as they begin to bicker goodnaturedly with one another as they walk through the parking lot to get to Johnny’s car. He loses the thread of the conversation almost immediately, but he doesn’t mind; he doesn’t want to get involved, anyways. Not again. Never again.

 

***

Here’s the thing: Taeil never would have guessed he’d be where he is now a year ago, back when he was convinced Johnny was out to get him. He’s not a psychic, so he doesn’t know exactly what the future holds, but he’s got a good feeling about it anyways.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and that's a wrap!!
> 
> now, i know what some of you are thinking -- "but sam, this chapter didn't resolve anything. in fact, i have MORE questions than i did before!" and i see you. i do! a sequel is DEFINITELY in the works though, don't worry! i expect the first part of that one to be posted sometime in april, but i'll keep y'all updated on twitter!
> 
> thank you to everyone who has read this fic of mine, commented, sent me a tweet or a cc about it, everything. it made writing this fic such a wonderful experience, and i love you all. come say hi on [twitter](https://twitter.com/zeromiles5) or [cc](https://curiouscat.me/zeromiles5) if you'd like! until next time!


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